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WikiProject Opera
This WikiProject encompasses
The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject music genres.
No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.
A similar WikiProject is WikiProject Classical music.
The practice, up until now, has been to use English titles of operas for article names and in articles where they are the common convention, ie, The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, but Così fan tutte and Der Freischutz. A redirect under the original title will point to the article with the English name.
In accordance with Ireland Information Guide naming conventions, we strive for the shortest possible distinctive name, ie La Scala (not La Scala, Milan), because there is only one. However, in some cases we have to disambiguate: there is more than one State Opera in German, so we have Bavarian State Opera, Berlin State Opera and Hamburg State Opera. In Italy, there is more than one Teatro Regio, so we have Teatro Regio Parma and Teatro Regio Torino.
From the examples above, another principle can be adduced: we use the English name of an opera house or an opera company where one exists and is commonly used (Google can usually be used to resolve this).
An opera house and an opera company are usually synonymous, but not always. Thus, we have an article on the Opéra National de Paris, an opera company, because it is associated with two opera houses, Opera Bastille and Opera Garnier.
Articles dedicated to specific operas should given the follow information at the beginning.
'''''[title] ''''' is an opera by [composer]. The libretto was written by [librettist], [which in turn was adapted from the book/play/epic poem ... by ...] It was first performed in [city or opera house] in [year].
We then discuss the work's genesis and historical importance.
We indicate whether this opera is part of the current repertoire and link it to the list of famous operas page:
'' '' is part of the standard operatic repertoire. There are a [several|many] recordings of it, and it is [occasionally|regularly|frequently] performed.
Finally, this is followed by a summary of the plot.
Although biographical articles customarily begin with the name of the person, extensive experimentation reveals that the following formula works well for opera singers, as it presents all the important facts in a stylistically pleasing way:
The [nationality] [soprano|tenor|etc] '''name''' (dates) [[was|is] a [well-known|famous] opera singer [whose career spanned| who was closely associated with the roles|etc] [one more additional descriptive line]
(This is obviously adapted for singers who also had significant non-operatic careers.)
We then follow with biographical information, highlighting important operatic debuts and the roles most closely associated with the singer.
If singers are still living, we refer to them in the present tense, but make clear that they are retired and indicate when they were active.
It is a habit in the opera world to refer to performances at certain opera houses simply using the name of the city, ie Milan, Paris, New York, which is an indirect reference to La Scala, Opera Guarnier, or the Met. One can link the city name to the relevant city article, ie [[Milan]] or pipe it to the relevant opera house, ie [[|La Scala|Milan]]. The latter solution seems elegant except its violates the Wikie principle of least surprise (it isn't exactly what the reader expects). On the other hand, a singer's Berlin debut is in fact a debut in front of the audience of a given city, not just an appearance in a theater. This issue is compounded by the fact that some big cities have more than one opera house, for which we have separate articles (London, Berlin, and Paris) and that sometimes historical references are made to theaters which no longer exist.
A special note regarding London. The opera world customarily refers to the main opera house there as Covent Garden. However, our article on Covent Garden is on the neighborhood of London of that name, not the opera house. The Royal Opera House is the name of the article, and that is what needs to be linked. A reasonable solution is to refer to them both, ie: [...] at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
When talking about singers, the opera world has the habit of referring to roles rather than the names of the opera, ie she made her Met debut as Mimi and went on to sing Liù. This is a useful shorthand, but it is not entirely helpful for people new to opera. It should be kept to a minimum and only used for a small number of very well-known roles, such as the Marschallin, the Contessa, or the Queen of the Night.
The main article is of course Opera.
Articles indexing operatic topics include: