Talk:Donald Shanks (bass-baritone)

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Article name/voice type[edit]

The recent move from Donald Shanks (bass-baritone) to Donald Shanks (opera singer) was flawed. The intention to move it should have been notified at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera for other editors' input.
In detail: As User:HandsomeMrToad observed, many of his roles were indeed bass roles, including some low ones, but not all. More more importantly, he's called a bass-baritone by a majority of sources, many of them from the popular press but also including Großes Sängerlexikon, International Who's Who in Music, and several authority control records, and that cannot be disregarded (although Grove called him a bass). The article used "bass-baritone" since User:JackofOz created it in 2008, and no-one thought to change that in 10 1/2 years. The move also created a contradiction between the lead ("bass singer") and the category "operatic bass-baritones". Secondly, opera singers are never disambiguated by "(opera singer)" but almost always by their voice type. The most sensible thing to do is to move it back to Donald Shanks (bass-baritone); the next best thing is to move it to Donald Shanks (bass). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:14, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can but agree. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:41, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, my goodness, I didn't know I was supposed to notify first. My error. Humble apologies!

My objection to "Donald Shanks (bass)" was that "bass" doesn't necessarily mean bass SINGER; could be a bass player in a rock-n-roll band or something like that.

HandsomeMrToad (talk) 14:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There several precedents for "(bass)", but "(opera singer)" is only used in very limited circumstances (no, or vastly different, voice types). Moving the article back to its original and well supported name avoids that perceived polysemy. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]