History:Style/Specific types of releases/Opera

Development of Style for Opera Tracks

• {i} Purpose: This page is for the evolution of the new style guide we would like to use for tracks from operas.

It starts as my synthesis of the mails from the thread Opera Track Style. Following DonRedman's suggestion, this page is going to evolve (by including digests of what was said on the mailing list, and by direct editing) until we reach a stable enough consensus to try it for real. In Don's proposed system, there are three stages:

• development (current) during which we discuss without editing any real data.
• testing (as soon as we are ready) where we test the proposed style on real data.
• validation (when we are happy with the testing) which means the results of this page become part of the official Style Guides.

I sprinkled this page with the names of users to indicate what position these users seemed to agree with. I hope I guessed your MB names correctly. Please move your names around if you change your mind or if I have misunderstood your position. The idea of course is to try to extract the options which most users like. I would like to try here something slightly different from a voting system, that is you may choose more than one option for each issue. I understand the urge to argument your choices, but please don't forget to add your names after the corresponding choices.

I identified four main issues in the thread: order, numbering system, punctuation and quotes.

Order

1: the order I originally suggested

• 1 - Opera name
• ( - No catalogue number)
• ( - No movement number)
• 2 - Act number
• 3 - Scene number
• 4 - Type (optional)
• 5 - First words of the scene
• 6 - Part (optional)

Example (don't look at the punctuation): Don Giovanni, Act I, Scene 3, Duettino, "Là ci darem la mano" (Don Giovanni, Zerlina)

2: leivhe's order

(cooperaa, davitof, leivhe)

• 1 - Opera name
• 2 - catalogue number (optional)
• ( - No movement number)
• 3 - Act number
• 4 - Scene number
• 5 - Type (optional)
• 6 - Part (optional)
• 7 - First words of the scene

Example (don't look at the punctuation): Don Giovanni, Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina), "Là ci darem la mano"

Numbering system (act - scene)

• arabic - arabic (davitof, leivhe) (it seems we could both be persuaded to go to romans)

• Don Giovanni, Act 1, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina), "Là ci darem la mano"

• roman - arabic
• roman - roman (cooperaa, cadalach)

• Don Giovanni, Act I, Scene III, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina), "Là cidarem la mano"

At least, it seems we can refuse the roman-arabic mix! --davitof 2007-02-02

Punctuation

After

• work title: Nobody suggested anything else than a colon.
• act number: Nobody suggested anything else than a comma.
• scene number:
  • comma
  • dot, by analogy with the general classical style. I think this is a good idea, since the scene type is closer to a movement indication. (cadalach cooperaa davitof)
  • colon (suggested by leivhe).

• part type and parts:
  • nothing (davitof, leivhe)
  • colon (andrewski)
  • comma
  • dot (andrewski, cooperaa)

Examples

• comma comma

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina), "Là ci darem la mano"

• comma colon

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina): "Là ci darem la mano"

• comma none

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina) "Là ci darem la mano"

• comma dot

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina). "Là ci darem la mano"

• none brackets

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3 (Duettino: Don Giovanni, Zerlina) "Là ci darem la mano"

• dot brackets (cooperaa, davitof, leivhe)

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3. (Duettino: Don Giovanni, Zerlina) "Là ci darem la mano"

quotes or not

some users have suggested we could omit the quotes altogether. examples

• comma comma

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina), Là ci darem la mano

• comma colon

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina): Là ci darem la mano

• comma none

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina) Là ci darem la mano

• comma dot

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene 3, Duettino (Don Giovanni, Zerlina). Là ci darem la mano

We must remember that the parts may not be here at all, so that I feel that at least a separator is needed --davitof 2007-02-02

So, should it be

• with quotes (davitof, Prodoc)
• without quotes (leivhe?)

Personally I think it's better to use quotes to have a clearer distinction between what's information about a track (everything before it) and what could be considered an actual title -- Prodoc 20:21, 05 February 2007 (UTC)

Optional information

I (cadalach) have created this new section to solicit opinions on what's been called the optional information. Here I mean, as in the above example, the "Duettino" and "Don Giovanni, Zerlina" information. Would it be sensible to treat this as just one piece of information? That is, either both are included or neither. I'd guess that it would be reasonable to say that if you knew (or cared about) one then you'd know the other too.

• I don't think so. My release of Le Nozze de Figaro (Kleiber) only mentions the parts, not the part type. Although I can understand that someone would later add the parts, we can't expect the original editor to search for them when he enters the release first. We must remember that some voters insist that the releases must be almost perfect to get into MB, so the less requirements we put, the more new releases we will have. Of course this means we will have to correct and improve many of those after, but I don't think this is too high a price to pay. --davitof 2007-02-02
  • Agree with davitof. --leivhe
    • Yes, also IMHO it should be stated very clearly that these are optional. We should guide how to use them but they should never become mandatory. Moreover they are redundant. When characters are present you can count out the kind of scene: 2 = duetto, 3 = trio, 4 = quartetto and so on. -- ClutchEr2

Pending issue

(this can be decided separately IMO) (cooperaa), what should we do when several scenes are merged on the same track (MultipleTitleStyle):

• Die Walküre: Act II. Prelude - Act II, Scene I. (Wotan) "Nun zäume dein Ross, reisige Maid!" Die Walküre: Act II. Prelude / Act II, Scene I. (Wotan) "Nun zäume dein Ross, reisige Maid!" Die Walküre: Act II. Prelude - Scene I. (Wotan) "Nun zäume dein Ross, reisige Maid!" Die Walküre: Act II. Prelude / Scene I. (Wotan) "Nun zäume dein Ross, reisige Maid!" Die Walküre: Act II. Prelude, Scene I. (Wotan) "Nun zäume dein Ross, reisige Maid!"

And what do we do when liner notes (non-scene-splitting) have more than one arias/recitatives for a track? Example:

• Croesus, Act II, Scene III: "Seht, wie Herr Elcius ist ein Politicus" (Elcius) / "Mein Kätchen ist ein Mädchen" (Bauernkinder) / "Ich solltes schier mein Unglück vergessen" (Elcius) http://musicbrainz.org/track/7ab7b6c7-a5cf-48e0-beca-f3faa9f006ab.html
  • I believe that according to your own suggested order, your example should be:
    • Croesus, Act II, Scene III: (Elcius) "Seht, wie Herr Elcius ist ein Politicus" / (Bauernkinder) "Mein Kätchen ist ein Mädchen" / (Elcius) "Ich solltes schier mein Unglück vergessen" --davitof 2007-02-02
    Quite right (punctuation differs, but this was about multiple arias/recs in a track) --leivhe

This is the track style I support most: --cooperaa (Feb 2)

• Don Giovanni: Act I, Scene III. (Duettino: Don Giovanni, Zerlina) "La ci darem la mano"
  • Looks good, I could agree on this! :) I'd like to have Arabics though, but it's not essential. Also note that the quotes are not needed, as the formatting guarantees a colon or a dot or a bracket (or a slash, in the case of multiple-arias-in-one-track) in front of the name. How about removing the quotes? You'd get: --leivhe (Feb 3.)
    • Don Giovanni: Act 1, Scene 3. (Duettino: Don Giovanni, Zerlina) La ci darem la mano
    Note that if we do this, we should amend the cantata style, as it currently puts Aria/Duet/Rec. in front of the brackets. --leivhe (Feb 5.)

Common practice

What I'm interested in, and what I'm missing on this page, is information about what's common practice in 'the real world' outside of MusicBrainz. If possible, we should stick to that as close as possible unless we come up with something significantly better. By doing this, more people than just us will have less trouble adapting to it. We might all have our personal preferences but e.g. which numbering system is most commonly used for acts and scenes? It would be good if we link to some resources or add examples to each issue just to have some form of reference -- Prodoc 20:21, 05 February 2007 (UTC)