Template:Did you know nominations/Elena Guseva

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 SL93 (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Elena Guseva

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• ... that Elena Guseva, a Russian soprano, appeared as Polina when Prokofiev's Der Spieler (The Gambler) was first performed at the Vienna State Opera? Source: [1]
  • Reviewed: to come
  • Comment: sorry, I missed nominating, due 2 days ago - it was ready from the beginning, I just thought of too many other things

Created by Gerda Arendt (talk). Self-nominated at 08:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC).

• Took a quick look at the article and was thinking that perhaps a hook about the "beautifully dark blazing passion" review would be better here. At the very least it seems more eye-catching than the Polina hook proposed here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:02, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

  that's true but I try to avoid one reviewers purple prose (+ the loss of meaning in translation) when I have something outstanding and solid: the first time of an opera by a major composer at a major house - shame on Vienna it took them so long - and she was the leading lady. Many readers should at least know the Dostojevsky novel even if not into opera. The critics review could be anywhere, and mean little. It was also at a major house, and I'd agree with his description, though. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:18, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

  I reviewed now Template:Did you know nominations/Ludwig Zottmayr. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll give this some more thought. To be honest, I'm not really a fan of this hook at all (it's really niche), but I'm open to approving it if there are no other possible hook facts. I would however suggest that additional hooks be proposed here that don't involve the The Gambler angle. Also pinging theleekycauldron and Storye book and requesting possible input on alternative hooks. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

To say that Prokofiev is niche tells me that I have no way to make you happy. That's a key composer, whose work should be made known even if not his best-known work, or just because of that. We run DYK, not the Love for 3 Oranges all the time, imho. I'd prefer to match the singer from Siberia with a Russian composer rather than a German one, although I saw her in the German opera. Her being chosen to the Vienna State opera - a great honour! - had probably to do with her native tongue which others would have had a hard time to learn. We also connect here to Russian literature, and addiction to roulette which happened in Wiesbaden, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that Prokofiev is niche. In fact, he's probably the most well-known name in the hook. I was referring to the rest of the hook, as while Prokofiev is relatively well-known, I'm not sure if The Gambler is well-known enough among the general readership for the hook to work. Besides, there was just that recent discussion at WT:DYK which suggested that perhaps there should be a move away from opera role hooks and focusing on some other aspect of the lives of the subjects. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

What is so difficult in that I prefer to expose The Gamblers To another Love for 3 Oranges? Role: "Polina" takes only six characters, and most of the hook is informative about the Vieanna State Opera having taken decades to present the work. I saw it in Hannover, George Alexander Albrecht conducting, much earlier. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "another 3 Oranges" given that said opera hasn't been featured on DYK. In any case, the point has less to do with the role being mentioned here being Polina and more about how other editors on DYK are also expressing reservations about opera role hooks and that it may be a good idea to move away from that format. There's nothing wrong with featuring Guseva or any other opera performer on DYK and in fact it's entirely doable and encouraged, just that there's probably a better way to do it than having yet another hook about them performing a role in an opera. Like what Kingsif said in that WT:DYK discussion: the ideal way to do things would be to make readers interested in reading about an opera performer by highlighting something funny or quirky about the performer, and then the readers would be enticed to read the article and then learn about their accomplishments in opera. And indeed, as Kingsif said, having hooks about these connections that may not be obvious to the average reader may be counterproductive, and instead it would be a better idea to explain those in the article itself rather than in the hook. After all, there's really only so much you can do with 200 characters.

For example, if there was an baritone who studied dentistry in college, then what could be done would be to write a hook about that baritone being a licensed dentist, then readers, thinking that a baritone being a dentist is unusual, would then read the article and learn that this baritone performed such-and-such role in such-and-such opera among many other accomplishments. It just seems more effective than mentioning immediately some role in some opera by some composers, none of whom may be that well known to the average reader.

Having come from a family with some musical links myself (my late grandmother was a pianist and her uncle was a composer known for being the namesake of the main theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines), I'm probably more aware of some of the composer names compared to the typical reader, but remember that we write for a general audience, a lot of whom may not be interested in opera, and so we need to appeal to them. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: besides the obvious issues you mention, I'm quite concerned that the hook fact isn't even in the article. It says She appeared [...] at the Theater Basel as Polina in Prokofiev's Der Spieler and, in the other paragraph, In 2017, Guseva performed as Polina in the first production of Prokofief's work at the Vienna State Opera. That should be resolved first, I would think, before we get to the hooks. I feel like I need to keep reminding Gerda of the time she didn't want to pass one of my hooks purely on the basis she hadn't heard of SXSW... of course, I'd probably just fail this one on "nothing interesting in article to work with" and "not new enough at time of nom anyway" if you don't want to IAR on that. Kingsif (talk) 00:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Kingsif, I don't see how the hook fact is not in the article, please explain. Being a young singer from a far-away country, and still be called to sing a lead role at one of the major houses of the world, in a production that finally did justice to a great work of art, seems an interesting enough fact, and is not a role hook. (If we just said she was Polina in such and such opera, that would be role hook.) It should be more interesting even to an average reader than that she first studied to be a choral conductor, or has a voice that one particular critic heard dark passion, imho. - I was just reminded (in a FAC) to never use an abbreviation without explanation, and think we should try to avoid it even hooks as much as possible. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

...she first studied to be a choral conductor... Perhaps a hook about that might actually be a good idea? Something like "... that Russian soprano Elena Guseva originally studied to be a chorale conductor?" Personally I thought that a singer originally wanting to be a conductor was interesting. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 09:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Gerda, I did explain, please actually read my comment: in one part of the article, it says she performed in Der Spieler at the Basel Theatre. In a separate part, it says she performed in a Prokofiev work (also spelled differently, so to an unaware reader it could be a different composer with a similar name…) at the Vienna State Opera. Nowhere does it say she was in Der Spieler at the Vienna State Opera.
Now, you say that Being a young singer from a far-away country, and still be called to sing a lead role at one of the major houses of the world, in a production that finally did justice to a great work of art, seems an interesting enough fact and the thing is, it would be. However, the hook is just "performer performs", and the article is absolutely no better. It is a prose list of works, it does not have any notes on how young she was, on how being from a different country is unusual in opera, how important the theatre is, any reviews of her performance. You infer these majestic facts because you know about the world of opera, and even people who know some operas and performers do not know all that, and neither the hook nor the article in this case are going to educate them. If by now you cannot see that, you're only going to cause more friction. And yes, the conductor fact would be more interesting, because to the uninitiated it is unusual to change ambition like that. (FTR, the hook said South by Southwest, I only abbreviated here for ease of typing.) Kingsif (talk) 18:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Kingsif, sorry about the misspelling of the composer's name. I also repeated the name of the opera (which I'd normally not do, as repetitive, but I try to please). As we don't have a birth year, we don't know exactly how young she was, but this happened less than 10 years after she completed studies which is amazing. If you look at sources for opera singers, they focus on which role where, because that defines where in the opera world a singer is positioned (example in English). It isn't "performer performs", - it makes all the difference performing what and where, that's what opera goers want to know, nor if the person changed ambition. - I just return from a great vacation day, and I promised to add to a church before I left. I'll try to please you more here but please be patient, and understand that from Christmas to now, and for weeks to come, my focus is not on Wikipedia. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether the location is important in the opera world and what opera goers want to know is kind of irrelevant. A film premiering at Grauman's Chinese Theatre or Odeon Luxe Leicester Square is impressive, but I only expect film nerds to know that, I wouldn't write or accept a hook that relies on both knowing and really understanding that. Especially if the article doesn't even mention the significance. And even if you could go to each Main Page reader and tell them "this benign-sounding fact matters in the opera world", just knowing that doesn't automatically make it matter to them. If anything, it makes opera more inaccessible to the layperson because it is giving them more niche pieces of information that they can't appreciate without being invested, and could make them worry that to appreciate any part of opera they need to be that deeply invested. Like, you keep saying that writing things about the popular operas seems obvious/boring to you, but that is still more than most people know, and if you can't fully explain your advanced opera niche stuff (the why it is interesting) concisely enough for a hook, what are we to do? Now, I can understand that you're busy, fine, but DYK has always expected timely responses, you must know that; if you're too busy for it, do we give you another exceptional pass, or say maybe don't nominate things that you're too busy to see to? Kingsif (talk) 20:01, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt and Narutolovehinata5: To elucidate, a hook that said "… that Elena Guseva performed in a leading role at the renowned Vienna State Opera less than ten years into her career?", would probably be fine, because it plays up why it should be interesting to people who don't know. You would need to expand the article to mention the "leading role", "renowned", and "less than ten years" parts. Of course, if you have all this kind of information to bring up in DYK I don't know why you don't put it in your articles in the first place, it would expedite the process. Kingsif (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

As said before, patience please. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: You don't have to reply to comments or pings immediately, you have seven days, you know this. So replying just to demand patience is… something. If you don't have time, I won't brusquely instruct you to hurry up, don't worry, but I would fail this already-late nom as we would with anyone else. Kingsif (talk) 20:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I added to the other article as promised first. Now I'm too tired to add to this one, but plan to do so tomorrow. For now, in the name of compromise, a hook based on what's there already, as suggested above:

ALT1: ... that when Elena Guseva appeared as Marietta in Korngold's Die tote Stadt, a reviewer noted her intense timbre and "beautifully dark blazing passion"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm willing to approve ALT1 or a variation of the suggestion above about her originally wanting to be a conductor. I would just like to note here that given you have made several nominations that were a day or two late, IAR may already be exhausted and thus any future late nominations may be quickfailed even if they were only late by a day or two. The time requirement is seven days and generally we need to adhere to that. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:19, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

ALT2: ... that Elena Guseva said, preparing the role of Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler at the Vienna State Opera, that having studied to be a choral conductor "helped her extremely" to analyse that score?

I added a bit to the article. Having said that, I still believe that the original is strong and short:

1. It illustrates her focus on Russian characters, which ALT1 doesn't.
2. It gives the "ordinary reader" an interesting title, + two generally known words: "Prokofiev" and "Vienna State Opera".
3. It alludes (Polina, The Gambler) to Dostojewsky which some may recognise.
4. It expands knowledge of a less-known work.
5. It illustrates that she was called for a special occasion.
6. I also realise that both ALTs rely heavily on translation, and I can't tell if what Deepl gives me for the critic's wording is really what the German says.

More generally: you said well that I'm interested in promoting opera, which means not only the singers, therefore a general "lead role at major house after a few years" is not my way. We recently had the Talk:Johann-Werner Prein hook which exposed a composer and his work banned by the Nazis, and I'm please that the composer (866) and especially his work (1,037) received more hits than the singer (767). The same condition would be true for ALT1 but we shouldn't play the Nazi card too often ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

ALT2 has promise, but I think it needs a bit of copyediting. perhaps it can be changed to "while preparing for the role of Polina..., Elena Guseva..."? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:05, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Theleekycauldron and Storye book: Is it okay if either of you rephrase ALT2? I actually like the hook fact, it's really good, the phrasing is just a bit clunky. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
  • My take: theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 07:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
  • ALT2a: ... that Elena Guseva's background as a choral conductor turned out to be useful when playing Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler at the Vienna State Opera?
    • I was careful to say that she felt that, and don't believe we can deliver it as a fact. Also, we say "appear" or "perform" for opera singers who sing and play. Adding "soprano" might be useful, vs. choral conductor. People may know that Polina is the lead woman in the novel, but not that the composer assigned soprano, or even that it is an opera (which is the last word). Also: "useful" is a rather pale word. The fact is that she was interested in the whole thing, not just her role, which I believe says a lot more about her. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Theleekycauldron that the ALT2 needed re-wording, and I am perfectly happy with ALT2a. If you want another one to argue over, then you could maybe have:
• ALT2b: ... that former experience of conducting choirs was of value to soprano Elena Guseva when she played Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler? Storye book (talk) 11:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• My problem with both ALT2a and ALT2b is that while the article mentions that she studied choral conducting, it nowhere says that she actually conducted choirs. While I think it highly unlikely that she could pursue those studies without doing any conducting in the process, the article nevertheless needs to have the fact stated unambiguously and supported by a source that way if it is to be used in a hook. (I agree that the phrasing of ALT2 was problematic, and cannot run as written.) BlueMoonset (talk) 16:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• ALT2c: ... that Elena Guseva's training as a choral conductor helped her analyse the score when playing Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler at the Vienna State Opera?
• The above ALT2c contains facts from citation 1 (publig.Renate) as I understand it from Google translate (copied below) Storye book (talk) 17:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

In the upcoming premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's work "The Gambler" ("Igrok") at the Vienna State Opera - the first premiere of this season, and the first time that this work is heard in a production of the State Opera in Vienna - we find Elena Guseva as Polina, one of the main roles. In an interview, the soprano, who was born in south-west Siberia, talks about the complexity of Russian libretti and about the right time to add a new role to the repertoire (Renate Publig, interviewer) ... My studies in choral conducting give me a great advantage because I analyze the musical structures. Prokofiev allowed the complexity of the story to flow into the complexity of the orchestral score, the harmony in the orchestra pit is not always apparent on first hearing. The vocal lines, on the other hand, are composed very "naturally", Prokofiev very often uses the technique of leading the voices almost in chanting. He composed in a form of redeintonation that corresponds to the actual style and intonation of Russian. There are hardly any arias or duets, but the music relatively corresponds to the way people talk to each other. (Elena Guseva)

• @Storye book: I think ALT2c is better than the original hook, but should it reworded slightly to mention "The Gambler" immediately after "the score", or is the current wording sufficiently clear? To me, mentioning Polina before The Gambler sounds a bit weird given that "the score" was referring to The Gambler. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:19, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  not weird, just normal, and we do have to mention the role, which is a key character in literature that people may know even if they are not into opera --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I didn't suggest that we remove Polina from the hook, just that the hook's wording be re-arranged a bit. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 08:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• ALT2d: ... that Elena Guseva's training as a choral conductor helped her analyse the score when playing Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler at the Vienna State Opera?
• @Narutolovehinata5: and @Gerda Arendt: I'm with Gerda on that one. Guseva was going to sing Polina. not conduct The Gambler. If you check out the sources, she was interested in the relationship between the musical line of Polina and the lines of the other singers and orchestral parts. I can see what she was getting at. When I first sang lieder (it was Hugo Wolf), I was given just my (seemingly rather banal) part to learn at home, but when I turned up and sang it with the piano accompaniment, I was astonished that the accompaniment was pretty well in another key and was telling a quite different story, which magically coloured my songline, turning it into something astonishing (the songline, not my singing of course). In my case, the musical dots did that by themselves, but opera is in every respect bigger than lieder. In the case of a professional like Guseva, she would be able to work out how to lean right into it and get something even better out of the situation. So "score" has to be near "Polina", because that's Guseva's job. I've given you ALT2d which is identical to 2c except that I've linked more words, as there seems to be a bit of concern about readers understanding things. I think that linking choral conductor is overdoing it a bit, but I would like to see "score" linked because a lot of people out there think that "score" is to do with competitive sports. Storye book (talk) 11:02, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Prefer ALT2c to ALT2d: the new links are intrusive and unnecessary, especially the two for "choral" and "conductor"; I can see the argument for "score", though I'm ambivalent about its addition. I don't agree with Narutolovehinata5 that this hook should be reworded, and agree with Storye book about why. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I like the idea of alt2 and think the linking in d is overkill. I'll again mention the film perspective as to why... nobody has ever thought the Oscar for Best Score is about sports. Alt2 itself is awkward, and a and b do seem to miss the point; I would also prefer alt2c. Kingsif (talk) 02:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• ALT2c: ... that Elena Guseva's training as a choral conductor helped her analyse the score when playing Polina in Prokofiev's The Gambler at the Vienna State Opera? (I have copied ALT2c from above to here so that it's nice and easy to find, and we're all happy bunnies. Peace and love.) Storye book (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
• Since there's consensus in favor of ALT2c and given that there's consensus that the original ALT2 was unsuitable, let's go with the former. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  I stuck the ALTs which shouldn't be used, instead of letting the poor prep builder find your preference. Next time, you please do that. (Silently hoping there won't be a next time.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  FWIW, it's hard to see struck text on a page with lots of text at a glance, but scrolling to an easily-visible checkmark icon and reading one line is simple. (Bit rude.) Kingsif (talk) 22:24, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  looks like it hasn't happened to you that the first hook was taken although a reviewer approved a different one --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)