Talk:Omar (opera)

A fact from Omar (opera) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 April 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the opera Omar, about the Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located less than a mile (1.6 km) from the site where he was sold as a slave?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Omar (opera).

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 11:56, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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... that the opera Omar, based on the life of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a Charleston, South Carolina theater located less than a mile from the site of the market where he was sold into slavery? Source: The opera premiered at the Spoleto Festival USA, less than a mile down the road from where the man was sold
Oops, I see that this hook is more than 200 characters (counting spaces). Let's try eliminating "Charleston, South Carolina."
ALT1 ... that the opera Omar, based on the life of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located less than a mile from the site of the market where he was sold into slavery?
And here's some more condensed versions:
ALT2 ... that the opera Omar, based on the life of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located a mile from the site where he was sold into slavery?
ALT3 ... that the opera Omar, about Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located less than a mile from the site of the market where he was sold into slavery?
ALT4 ... that the opera Omar, about Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located a mile from the site where he was sold into slavery?
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Polyptych of Saint Barbara (Palma Vecchio)

Created by MelanieN (talk). Self-nominated at 18:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Omar (opera); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

The target article in the hook is supposed to be in bold font. Schwede 66 01:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Fixed. -- MelanieN (talk) 03:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited: - Not quite. "Sold into slavery" implies this was the place he became a slave, where actually the source just says "sold", since he was already a slave.
Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Easily fixed; I recommend just "sold as a slave", but there might be other alternatives. More importantly, I strongly recommend to only propose one hook for this basic phrasing, not four with very minor variations - I had to read and reread them just to see what the differences were! Out of those I prefer "about","less than a mile", and "the site where". You may even consider "premiered" for shortitudineosity - though honestly, it's all much the same. GRuban (talk) 14:46, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GRuban, thank you very much for your helpful comments. Yes, I do see now that the reference says “sold as a slave” rather than “sold into slavery”; he had already been sold into slavery in Africa. I will take your suggestions for "about" (rather than "based on the life of") and leaving out "market" for brevity. I will retain "had its world premiere" rather than just "premiered" because I think it is clearer. That leave us with

*ALT5 … ... that the opera Omar, about Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, had its world premiere in a theater located less than a mile from the site where he was sold as a slave?

That gets the main points across, including what I hope is perceived as a shocker, that a scholar was sold as a slave. And is well under 200 characters. Thanks again. .-- MelanieN (talk) 16:09, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Approve ALT5, good show. --GRuban (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relative credit of the two composers

This article states:

"The opera was commissioned in 2019 by the Spoleto Festival USA and Carolina Performing Arts. The commission was given to Rhiannon Giddens, who wrote both the music and the libretto, with Michael Abels as co-composer expanding and orchestrating the music. The premiere, initially planned for 2020, had to be postponed twice due to COVID-19.[7]"

Source [7] does not support the sense that Giddens composed the major part of the score, as opposed to Abels having done so. My belief when I saw Omar at SF Opera was that Abels composed most of it, but I don't have the program notes (or anything else) to back that up. Probably more research is needed.

Spope3 (talk) 23:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot access that specific source due to a paywall, but all sources I have reviewed state that Giddens and Abels were co-composers of the work, with the libretto by Gibbens. I also saw the SF Opera performance; here is their press release which says the same thing. Funcrunch (talk) 23:42, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]