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Handel

The list of operas on the Handel linker template reads, in part:

Esther (1718)
Acis and Galatea (1718)
Esther (1732)
Deborah (1733)

Both Esthers link to the same page, and one is a revision of the other. I propose we replace this with

Esther (1718, revised 1732)
Acis and Galatea (1718)
Deborah (1733)

Which seems much more elegant. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Operas? The only potential opera here is Acis and Galatea (it's a masque). The rest are oratorios. --Folantin (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Are you sure you are looking at the list of operas? I don't see Esther of Deborah on there.Nrswanson (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they're oratorios, and your proposed change looks fine. The Triumph of Time and Truth is another case, this time with three versions (two different titles, too), all in the template and all linking to the same page! --GuillaumeTell 18:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

April CoM and OoM

We need to decide fairly soon on these. I'm currently in the process of switching to a new computer, so my online time is more limited for the next 10 days or so. Also, I'll be away from 11-24 April. Anyhow, thoughts anyone? Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

CoM

If no one has any other suggestions, we could hold over the March CoM (minus the blue links). I now have material for all of the remaining ones, just haven't had the time to write 'em up. I'll continue to work on them regardless, and since I'll be away for a largish chunk of April, I'm happy with any other suggestions. Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OoM

One suggestion - Most of the Verdi operas could use work, including La traviata and Il trovatore. Their performance history sections are dire, and the synopses badly need copy-editing. Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Once H.M.S. Pinafore's done, I'd enjoy working on Verdi - Puccini's looking pretty decent after our last push, but Verdi's another major composer but one who hasn't had a cleanup and touchup lately. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Or we could put H.M.S. Pinafore in, I guess. Though it's nearly ready already, and I don't think most of you have the sources I do. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Re Pinafore, we generally don't use the Opera Project CoM and OoM for works that are more directly the responsibility of 'daughter/sister' projects such as the Wagner, G & S, and Musical Theatre projects. Voceditenore (talk) 11:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It's the 30th. If noone objects in the next few hours, I'm going to implement Voceditenore's suggestions. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Verdi's not my thing but I've got other stuff I can be getting on with in April (assuming I have the time).--Folantin (talk) 12:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I've had a go at selecting Verdi. Almost all his articles have about the same sort of problems (mainly lack of detail), so I've simply attempted to choose the most often performed, as they're the ones an encyclopedia would be expected to have really good articles on. (Otello has sourcing issues, but the content is at least there, so I've skipped it over.)
If we get one particularly good, it might make a good start for an FA run later on. It would be nice to start making a series of really top-quality articles on the great opera composers. Of course, if we keep celebrating anniversaries, we'll eventually reach everything =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


I've resored Acis and Galatea - the terms used are somewhat vague when it comes to Handel, and it seems more important to avoid causing a work, because of its vague status between opera and oratorio, from falling through the cracks and not getting displayed anywhere. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I highly disagree with that decision. Grove specifically says that it has been "incorrectly described as an oratorio"; a fact also stated and referenced in the article! Grove further states that it is one of the greatest if not the greatest pastoral operas ever written. Handel himself referred to the work as a "little opera". Further, the oratorio template is not on that page, nor is the article in the oratorio cats. Nrswanson (talk) 21:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

March opera and composer of the month

We need to discuss OotM etc for March fairly urgently. Any ideas, anyone? (I'm having networking problems and can only log in once or twice a day at present). --GuillaumeTell 18:11, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Opera of the Month

Handel. To prepare for the 250th anniversary of his death. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think a Handel push would be a great idea for March. The only question is how to set it up in the our perameters? The biography on Handel needs a considerable amount of work and so do the majority of the opera pages. Perhaps we could pick a limited number of operas to focus on improving in addition to his biography. Any thoughts? Nrswanson (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Since it's a push, I'd suggest we pick the three to five most important operas to concentrate on, and just fix any glaring problems in the remainder. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm in favour of that too. There are a couple of ways to approach it. You could select a couple of his opera articles that are sufficiently developed to have a chance of getting to B class with a bit of work + 2 stubbish or start ones to expand. Or just pick the 3-4 most 'important' and/or frequently performed ones to improve. Example wording:
The operas of the month for March are four works by George Frideric Handel. We will be working to improve Handel Opera 1, Handel Opera 2, Handel Opera 3, and Handel Opera 4 as well as the article on their composer.
(By the way, the Composers Project has already rated George Frideric Handel as B and left some very helpful comments in their assessment). Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Agrippina is a GA. I'd suggest that a strong push to get it to FA as quickly as possible might allow us to have something by Handel on the main page for the anniversary. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

By "main page" do you mean Portal:Opera? It's already in the Selected Article rotation for the Portal. See Portal:Opera/Selected article. Or do you mean the actual main page of Wikipedia? I'm not a Handel person myself and will be concentrating on the CoM articles next month, so I can't comment on the feasibility of trying to get it to FA status, although I doubt there are enough people here willing/able to do a labour-intensive collaboration like that. I could be wrong, though.;-) Voceditenore (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)It's a bit late for an FA in April now shoemaker. The FA review process often takes several weeks, and that would be after we make the labor intensive edits necessary. Then there is the FA submission process for what gets featured on the main page. That can take a long time as well. I personally don't have access to the resources that would be needed for the job either (although others may). It's a good thought but, unless we have an Agrippina expert with excellent references on hand that can spearhead this, I don't think it is a good idea.Nrswanson (talk) 19:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I asked Raul, he seems willing to let us have the space if we hurry, so I've begun work. I'm going to bring in some copyeditors ASAP. Luckily, Moreschi, who largely got the article up to GA, is an Agrippina expert, so I doubt there'll be excessive surprises, and I'll help do what work be needed. And, hey, worse comes to worse, we'll still have a better article at the end of it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Composer of the Month

I'd like to re-nominate one of my suggestions for February:

Italian composers

Note: Operas marked with * have articles in Grove

It would be good to have choices from an era and a country that are substantially different from the OoM stuff. Handel is not everyone's cup of tea/expertise. Any other suggestions? Remember that the CoM is for creating currently red-linked articles in the Opera corpus. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

  • This group of composers looks fine. I would suggest a few alterations to the operas though to reflect the coverage in Grove. Grove covers Giordano's Il re and La cena delle beffe and Smareglia's La Falena and Oceàna. All the other works by these composers that are covered in Grove are already written. We have a lot of works in this group which aren't covered in the standard references. That's ok if editors in this group are sure they have or can get access to sources for these operas.Nrswanson (talk) 16:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, I have access to Italian reference books which do cover the ones I listed and some are also on the Italian Wikipedia. So they should be OK, but you could also add the others you mentioned which are covered in Grove if you want. Of the current ones listed above, could you put a * by the ones which have Grove articles? I've mark the ones with Italian WP articles. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Sure. I added them above. There is now twelve on the list though. We should probably chop it down to either 8 or 9 total. Perhaps save Leoncavallo for another month?Nrswanson (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Assessment

I know not everyone here is interested in assessment but I do think for practical reasons our project needs to re-address this issue. For some time now, our motto has been to assess without really assessing (i.e. automatic bot assessments, assessments without written reviews/comments, no formalized process etc.) For this reason, there is really no garauntee that any article's assessment (except for GA/FA articles) is accurate. Since we are now faced with using assessment as a means for selecting articles for the Opera Portal this is now a problem. I think it's time that we clarify our assessment criteria at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Assessment and then put together a task force to at least evaluate all of out B class rated articles. In this way we can confirm the validity of the grade and then start diversifying the featured content at the Portal. The composer project has recently been working on a similar campaign which has been highly successful in my opinion. One other change that I think is essential is the adoption of C-class into our point scale system. I would like to suggest the following point scale:

  • 0-24: Stub
  • 25-49: Start
  • 50-74: C
  • 75-89: B
  • 90+: A

In my opinion C class is highly useful. There are many articles, such as La bohème, which are clearly not B class but are considerably beyond the typical start article (i.e. Suor Angelica). C class is a great rating for identifying such articles. Please let me know your thoughts everyone. Nrswanson (talk) 02:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

AGREE: On the face of it, a C Class does seem to be useful, especially as it is noted and defined in the WikiProject Opera/Assessment section. In addition, the points spread from 25 to 59 is so very broad that articles with 25 points and those with 59 have got to be very different from each other, but can both be really rated as "Start"?. Viva-Verdi (talk) 18:35, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Exactly my feelings. The point spread I suggested above is a lot more reasonable and gives a roughly 25 point spread for stub, start, and C class articles. The point margine for A and B class is much narrower but I think that is appropriate based on their defined standards. Do you approve of my suggested point spread Viva-Verdi?Nrswanson (talk) 19:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Point spread: Indeed, I do agree, subject to seeing our colleague below's comments.Certainly, the criteria for a "B" are different from the "C" proposal. An article should be pretty good to get one, which is partly why I have been going through and upgrading all the Verdi ones to include something in all relevant sub-sections. Viva-Verdi (talk) 04:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Agree in principle, but I'd like to scrutinise the points range further. One caveat: points or no points, we can't award (say) B-class if an article is lacking mandatory B-class attributes, such as inline citations. I'm happy to participate in an assessment exercise, initially for Portal purposes, but I do have other things to do and am conscious that I sometimes (often) spread myself too thinly. --GuillaumeTell 01:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Since no one has given any nays to the addition of C-class, I am going to go ahead and update the point scale. I suggest that we also add the proviso that B-class articles must adequately meet the standards set at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. That should meet GuillaumeTell's concerns. What all do you think?Nrswanson (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and put together a possible new assessment table at User:Nrswanson/sandbox‎. I would love some feedback. Cheers.Nrswanson (talk) 01:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Looks OK to me. --GuillaumeTell 18:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Excellent. Viva-Verdi (talk) 22:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks guys. I am going to be bold and replace the old assessment table with the new one.Nrswanson (talk) 03:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Sources

Can anyone recommend good scholarly databases where analysis of an opera can be found? I'd like to start working on Lucia di Lammermoor with the goal of bringing it to FA quality. I did a generic library search but at first glance, I seem to be getting just a lot of reviews of modern performances like the one at the Met. I also found a couple dictionaries of opera but those would be tertiary sources. --Laser brain (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a very interesting article by Sir Charles Mackerras which appears on pp29-33 of the booklet in his 1997 Sony recording, with discussion of instrumentation, keys, perversions of Donizetti's intentions, other performance history and whatnot. --GuillaumeTell 01:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Great, thanks for the pointers. Hopefully I can find some way of accessing the Ashbrook book without paying the $90! --Laser brain (talk) 03:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Looks like there's no way I'm getting my hands on Ashbrook without paying. The university library has it in "mending" until 2010 and they say no other library will loan it. If anyone else wants to write about Donizetti, maybe we can note somewhere that one of us has this book in case anyone needs scans of pages, etc. --Laser brain (talk) 22:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
The Fishjer book is actually even more detailed for Lucia the Ashbrook. Maybe you could swing the 20 bucks for that?Nrswanson (talk) 00:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Yep, got that one too. --Laser brain (talk) 01:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Aida

click to enlarge

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

  • Yes, it is nice. I've reduced the size a bit so as to make this page easier to load. Just click on it to see the full size. I'm going to to the same to the Saint-Saens one above. Voceditenore (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Just noting it. I've only put it in Aida, so if it should go anywhere else, it ain't there yet. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the El Capitan image is also done and, like the Aida, is at FPC. I'm kind of limited by what's available - there's going to be a bias towards operetta, simply because the sources I'm currently using have mostly operetta images - but I'll do what I can. There's a couple Carmen posters, anyway, and some interesting architectural shots of opera houses. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

  • El Capitan
    El Capitan
  • Carmen
    Carmen
  • Carmen - somewhat grainier
    Carmen - somewhat grainier

Well, I guess this solves our portal problem, at least to some extent... I'll do Babes in Toyland, The Mascot, and The Ameer, but then I'm going to sit back and insist that someone else does some of this work. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading these, some will definitely be useful for the portal. As for insisting that "someone else does some of this work", that's fine if you're tired of working with opera-related images and don't want to do it anymore. People should only do work that they enjoy. But please note that there are various kinds of image work, and you're not the only one doing it. I've found and uploaded nearly 80 images to illustrate opera articles, most of them public domain. But quite a few of them are under "fair use" to illustrate articles on deceased 20th century singers, all of which entails meticulously documenting the source and writing fair use rationales. I also spend a fair amount of time on the Commons finding existing images to illustrate articles. I must have added at least 50 so far. I don't demand that unless other editors to do this work too, I'm going to stop. Note also that many, if not most, of the other active editors in this project may not have the expertise or software required for producing high resolution restored images. (I certainly don't, although I can do basic formatting, cropping, and colour correction.) But those editors are highly productive in other ways, creating and editing articles, finding references, monitoring newly-created articles, removing copyvio, keeping key articles on their watchlists, etc. etc. Why imply that the rest of us are in some way "lazy" because we don't work in the same areas that you do? Best, Voceditenore (talk) 09:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Didn't phrase that very well: It's more that I've done four in the last couple days, the Library of Congress doesn't actually have a huge number available, and am getting to the stage where, of the remaining images available to me, I'm reaching the point where I'm not doing images because I think they're particularly good, but because, say, out of the four La Mascotte images, this one is the only one that isn't really rather creepy-looking. If someone could at least point me towards images needing restoration that were of decent quality, that would be one thing, but... Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
You might want to check out the possibilites in the Image sources section of the OP's Online research guide, if you're still interested in working on pictures. I'm not sure whether you're only looking for high resolution and/or very large images, but some of the resources there have them. But like I said, no one should feel they have to work in a particular area. Just work on what gives you satisfaction. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. §hepTalk 00:23, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Angel Taormina AFD

The deletion discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angel Taormina for members who wish to comment. Voceditenore (talk) 09:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:31, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Francophones?

This is probably a little premature, but in a week or two I should have an illustrated newspaper, with engravings, discussing the première of Massenet's Le Cid. Would anyone be interested in doing an English translation of the French, and using it to help bulk up said article? It will also have engravings for illustrating the article. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This is probably a little late, but I'd be happy to get a look at it. Sparafucil (talk) 01:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Handel's Agrippina

Would anyone from the opera project like to leave comments on this article's peer review page? The article is being prepared as a possible FA and TFA for the 250th anniversary of Handel's death on 14 April, so time is a bit short. Brianboulton (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, come on: If it passes, it's the first Opera Wikiproject featured opera article, and thus likely to set the pattern for any future FAs. I'd strongly suggest a look-over, at the least. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The article looks great now. I've followed its progress ever since it was at peer-review and even contributed a couple of small suggestions there, and I'm sure others have followed it as well. The reason I added the update and link was precisely so OP members could continue follow its progress. So what's the "Oh, come on" for? ;-)Voceditenore (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I'd just like to see more Wikiproject contribution. It's been kind of quiet, and it's hard to judge if the Wikiproject are happy with the compromises made to, say, positioning of the synopsis and that sort of thing, and I am worried about surprising people. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean more contribution to the FAC? Or to the article itself? I was aware of the structure changes, and I'm personally happy with them, including the re-positioning of the synopsis. They make sense in my view, especially at feature article level. I also like the decision to keep a separate list of arias in addition to their integration into the synopsis. It's useful to readers. Ploughing through a detailed synopsis to find them, is laborious to say the least. Another bonus was the collapsible Navbox for Handel. I hope we can have more of those.
We're not a big project in terms of active members, and there's a lot of work to do in lots of areas. I'm up to my eyeballs with OP "housekeeping" at the moment and drafting articles for the current CoM. Many of us also have big watchlists to look after. You shouldn't interpret "quiet" to mean "disapproval". If there were disapproval, there'd be plenty of squawking, trust me. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 19:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, then. =) Sometimes I forget how small this project really is.
I, for one, am keenly interested in the outcome of this FAC for the reasons Shoemaker's Holiday mentioned. --Laser brain (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sub-discussion: Can we do this for Purcell?

Some definite possibilities there. The Fairy-Queen and Dido and Æneas are GAs, with The Fairy-Queen arguably the more substantial of the two. Given the timescale, though, and a reasonable amount of interest, it would be nice to try and pull Henry Purcell himself up to FA. That being said, operas are arguably easier to get up to FA than composers, due to the more limited scope - For instance, if I were doing Handel, I'd need to carefully study all of Dean and Knapp, and distil it. For Agrippina, the chapter on Agrippina was ample.
I'd like to do this with at least one or two other people, if possible. Would anyone be interested? We have plenty of time, so it should be a fairly relaxed project, and I don't intend to start until after I finish H.M.S. Pinafore's FA. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, I was a little sceptical of the FA process, but since this one went so well I'd be prepared to help out as far as I can (I still think GA is a waste of time). Unfortunately, I don't know how much free time I'm going to have this year, but I'll gradually add what I can to articles on all of Purcell's operas. Maybe when it gets nearer September we can decide which one to choose to go for the FA push. --Folantin (talk) 09:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure, though we should probably start a little sooner than we did with Agrippina: We did cut it a bit tight there, and Agrippina was a somewhat better article to start with than any of the Purcell choices are at this moment. (For instance, only The Fairy-Queen has any substantive analysis, but it could use better sourcing, while Agrippina was decently sourced beforehand.) That said, if we get some good books and other sources together, it may be possible to pull up more than one article without too much extra trouble (there are generally volunteers available to do copyediting and the like so long as the information is there already, so extra people are available to help so long as they don't need access to sources). Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we should make Purcell Composer of the Month in, say, June, try to get all his opera articles up to at least B-class then pick one which would make a good candidate for FA. Since this is his anniversary, maybe more material will be published over the course of the year. I'll start looking for stuff (e.g. see if I can pick up Jonathan Keates' bio second-hand - or maybe this is the kind of book which will be reissued). There's quite a lot of material I can access using Google books and Amazon Reader. --Folantin (talk) 10:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

[Unindent] Sounds like a good plan, and he didn't write a huge number of operas. I'd suggest, though, that we at least improve the main composer article a bit. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. The bio needs a complete revamp. Purcell's an elusive figure. There aren't a lot of solid facts about his life but we should add the latest scholarly speculation - and the article certainly needs referencing. Plus we should separate Life and Works on the page. The works section could be divided into "Sacred music", "Chamber and keyboard music", "Odes and Welcome Songs", "Solo songs" and "Theatre and opera music". --Folantin (talk) 11:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I should probably warn you that I will not be available for much of June. My father and uncle are visiting. But I'll try and help out before and after. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:46, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
How about May or July? --Folantin (talk) 12:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Plus, we could make the Purcell biography revision a combined effort with the Composers Project. --Folantin (talk) 16:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Good idea! How active are they? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Hard to tell, but they recently had an assessment review of their B-class articles, which included Purcell (see here [1]). --Folantin (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
[Unindent] I've invited them to join us here.
That said, even if we do spend the bulk of our work on the main article, I think it'd be fitting to us being the Opera project if we also improved the articles on the operas. I think that a good minimum to try for might be:
  • Basic performance history (dates, locations, original creators of the roles)
  • A good synopsis - let's face it, 90% of the people looking up the article are going to want to know the plot.
  • At least some analysis and notes on how the operas have been received
  • A list of musical numbers (Baroque operas are so highly structured that I think this makes sense, even if we've moved away from them in recent years)
  • Decent sourcing
Since there's only five operas by Purcell, I think that that checklist would be a level we could achieve for all five without overwhelming ourselves (and also represents a stage where the article is pretty useful). In any case, it's going to be easier to collaborate if we talk about our plans and goals a little bit. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Remember four of them are semi-operas and that the performance history of Dido is very mysterious indeed - they might not fit into the conventional way of writing opera articles. I've heard practically everything Purcell wrote and I'm familiar with these pieces, so I have a rough idea what's needed. We'll also need an article to cover Purcell's theatre music - the music he wrote for plays like Timon of Athens and Bonduca is so extensive it almost falls into the semi-opera category (quarter-opera maybe?). --Folantin (talk) 20:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we may be talking slightly at cross purposes - I'll try again: My goal is to get (at least one) FA in time for the anniversary, but while we have our books out, I think we should make sure all the Purcell articles are useful introductions to their topics, which, I'm afraid, many of them are not at the moment (c.f. King Arthur (opera) (very poor coverage), The Indian Queen (no sources, only one sentence on Purcell)). If we also make sure they're well-sourced and well-referenced, then if we want to bring them to FA (which really just means "make them really good articles", after all) during this push or later, we've also made a good start towards that, and will just need to work to add more sources and detail. =) Were you talking about in Henry Purcell? If so, I agree that we need discussion of his incidental music there, and if we can, it would be nice to make sure they have decent sub-articles, but we need to be careful not to take too much on. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The Purcell idea is great. Perhaps April could be a time to assess, start working (informally) on the operas/biography and then make them the May CoM and OoM. Also, there's nothing to prevent them from carrying over to the following month (June). I'd suggest starting sooner rather than later, as once you get to July and August, people start going on holiday.Voceditenore (talk) 06:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
    • May wouldn't be a bad idea for the concerted work - I have exams, but this would be a good cool-down between studying - and if problems come up, we would still have plenty of time to sort them out. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

April CoM and OoM

We need to decide fairly soon on these. I'm currently in the process of switching to a new computer, so my online time is more limited for the next 10 days or so. Also, I'll be away from 11-24 April. Anyhow, thoughts anyone? Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

CoM

If no one has any other suggestions, we could hold over the March CoM (minus the blue links). I now have material for all of the remaining ones, just haven't had the time to write 'em up. I'll continue to work on them regardless, and since I'll be away for a largish chunk of April, I'm happy with any other suggestions. Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OoM

One suggestion - Most of the Verdi operas could use work, including La traviata and Il trovatore. Their performance history sections are dire, and the synopses badly need copy-editing. Voceditenore (talk) 07:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Once H.M.S. Pinafore's done, I'd enjoy working on Verdi - Puccini's looking pretty decent after our last push, but Verdi's another major composer but one who hasn't had a cleanup and touchup lately. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Or we could put H.M.S. Pinafore in, I guess. Though it's nearly ready already, and I don't think most of you have the sources I do. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Re Pinafore, we generally don't use the Opera Project CoM and OoM for works that are more directly the responsibility of 'daughter/sister' projects such as the Wagner, G & S, and Musical Theatre projects. Voceditenore (talk) 11:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It's the 30th. If noone objects in the next few hours, I'm going to implement Voceditenore's suggestions. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Verdi's not my thing but I've got other stuff I can be getting on with in April (assuming I have the time).--Folantin (talk) 12:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I've had a go at selecting Verdi. Almost all his articles have about the same sort of problems (mainly lack of detail), so I've simply attempted to choose the most often performed, as they're the ones an encyclopedia would be expected to have really good articles on. (Otello has sourcing issues, but the content is at least there, so I've skipped it over.)
If we get one particularly good, it might make a good start for an FA run later on. It would be nice to start making a series of really top-quality articles on the great opera composers. Of course, if we keep celebrating anniversaries, we'll eventually reach everything =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Request

Can someone recommend 2-4 books that would help with the upcoming Purcell project? I want to start preparing, but I'm not that familiar with the scholarship as yet, and don't know which books are considered definitive. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I've heard a lot of Purcell but it's a while since I've read much about him, so take this under advisement. Bios? I'd say Jonathan Keates and Robert King. General books: Peter Holman (Westrup's study is famous but may be out of date in some respects). Looks promising for our project: C. A. Price Henry Purcell and the London Stage. A lot of stuff about Purcell is highly speculative and the speculation keeps changing (especially regarding Dido) so it might be worth a look at the latest online version of his Grove bio and/or using JSTOR to have a look at recent scholarly papers (sorry, I can't do either at the moment). --Folantin (talk) 13:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Eh, maybe I'll just go with whatever I find the well-stocked Edinburgh Universitry music library. It's quite extensive. I just discovered we had the HHA, so I can finish my Ero e Leandro GA. Mwahaha. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:58, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible navboxes

Setting up the new Handel Navbox template took me several hours, and I had to call in outside help at the end - not good, given I made the Opera of the month templates we use here, and so can probably be considered pretty good with templates. To make things a lot easier on anyone following down this path, I'm going to make a simple, fill-in-the-blanks template for setting these up much more easily. Could I get a couple volunteers to try it out (on the composer(s) of their choice) once it's done?

Also, is the Handel template's colours alright for the "default" colours? I'll make it so they can be changed, but it'll be easier on anyone who doesn't know Hexadecimal RGB code (e.g. #FFFFFF=White) if they can just skip that step =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Right! Try out {{Composer navbox}}, and let me know of any problems. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Couple of points here:
  • first, when you say "Try it out", do you mean "Try converting one or more of the current navboxes into this format"? I'll be happy to do this if no-one else has (starting with Rossini, of course).
  • second, in respect of the Agrippina article (which I haven't commented on at the FA process because I don't know the opera): expanding any of the show/hide sections, let alone all of them, produces vast wastes of blank space to the left. When I set up many of the early non-collapsible boxes, I tried to minimise the blank-space problem - see, for example, Ermione. Obviously, this is easier to do with a fixed-length box, but I'm wondering whether there is some way in whic the sections that follow the lead in Agrippina and elsewhere can fill up the space when the box is expanded. (The situation with the Agrippina article is also exacerbated by the very long TOC with its own very long blank space to the right! Maybe this should start in hidden mode in that article?)
--GuillaumeTell 19:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
How odd: It seems to be a bug in how the expansion is handled, particularly in IE (Firefox acts differently). That's probably an issue with the code Wikipedia uses for the expansion; I'll file a bug report on it.
In the meantime, try converting the Rossini template, but don't feel you must put it in articles before the problems are sorted =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I find find the it: Rossini template is quite nice. It opens only when the cursor is over it. Not being able to guess the Italian for "template", I dont know how to find the source code. Sparafucil (talk) 06:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean it:Template:OpereRossini? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought I did. Could the behavior of the "collapsed" template have been modified without showing up on this page's history? Back when Rossini was composer of the month I remember moving my cursor over the bar without clicking... Sparafucil (talk) 07:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I've not been feeling that well this week. Give me a few days. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
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