Talk:Jules Massenet

Untitled

I would like to start a page on Massenet's opera Don Quichotte, but the link points to the main page about Cervantes Don Quixote. How can this be remedied? Kleinzach 00:27, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Compositions list

I saw on some other pages for French composers that they have a few composotions listed but also have a page completely devoted to the compositions. Why not the same for Massenet? Right now as it stands more than half the page is a list of his compositions? It makes the page look much bigger than it really is which prevents people from adding to the body of the page.Boondigger (talk) 05:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Note, user has been blocked for sock puppetry. Viriditas (talk) 12:34, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Hamlet

I'm not sure how to fix it, so I'm just posting this here, but there is a link to Hamlet which goes to the Shakespeare play when it should go to Hamlet (places) page, or at the very least the disambiguation page for Hamlet. Pena47 (talk) 11:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC) : I have made this change. Thanks. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 23:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

FYI

Saw on Inspector Morse episode, "The Day of the Devil", where the list of credits shows "Aria by Massenet sung by Janis Kelly". Don't know if uses like this could be included in the body somewhere. Manytexts (talk) 11:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Surname: two or three syllables?

I was surprised to see the IPA pronunciation at the top of the article as "French: [masnɛ]", as I have always thought the first "e" is sounded, making the name a trisyllable. But I have just played Pierre Monteux's spoken introduction to the 1950s recording of Manon, and he calls the composer "Mass-nay" – two syllables. Two websites purporting to have native French speakers showing you how are at odds with each other, with one giving the name three syllables and the other two (or about two and quarter, if such a thing be possible). Are there any Francophones in diesen heil'gen Hallen (sorry!) who can adjudicate on the matter? Tim riley talk 13:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• I think it is two and a bit, not three syllables. I am not sure how authoritative the YOutube one is... the other sounds far more likely. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 16:27, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I am truly in your debt for that. Like many (most?) Anglo-Saxons I have a poor ear for the nuances of French, and a helping hand is gratefully received. I shall have to practise my quarter-vowel sound, rather like the "e"s at the end of words in Chaucer I suppose, "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" and so on. Tim riley talk 21:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Hi, I'm French and I confirm that you should not sound the first E, unless you want to utter his name very slowly and carefully :) So "French: [masnɛ]" is correct. (Oh, and nice article by the way! Congratulations for the FA star!) -- Frédéric
      • Warm thanks both for your advice and for your kind remark, Frédéric. Most welcome! Tim riley talk 23:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

first sentence

I suggest that he is not "best known for his thirty-five operas", but best known for his operas. No one, surely could know all 35. The total should however, be mentioned somewhere. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 16:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I smiled at that. Perfectly true, of course, though I bet there are a few opera obsessives who can tick off most if not all of his works. But I have Massenet up for peer review here, and I have taken the liberty of copying your notes above and below to that page, where I hope you may have further suggestions for improvement. Tim riley talk 14:35, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I am sure during the making of this featured article I suggested various (excellent) things which did not get included... now, however, the poor reader, before he or she can read half a dozen words even is confonted with several pronunciation variants which immediately interrupt the flow and enjoyment of the FA. Surely, if these do have to stay, they could be put in a footnote. How many readers even know how to interpret phonetic symbols? Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:11, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I cordially concur, and will do the necessary. Sorry to read that we (that is to say I, really) missed some of your suggestions earlier. I can't spot them now, looking at the PR and FAC pages. Do please raise them again if you're inclined. Tim riley talk 08:49, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much for doing that. The worst ones for this are the Russians (try Tchaikovsky – there is nothing of interest in the first line). And sorry for any misunderstanding – I was merely trying to say that in creating feature articles like this lots of good things are put forward (not just by me!) which don't make it in, but somehow this pronunciation stuff can just be added, even though there was no question about it during the peer review. So, no you did not miss anything I need to add, at the moment. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)"Old style"

list of singers

Although lists can get out of hand, I would suggest that Gabriel Bacquier deserves a place in the list of singers; as he took part in five commercial recordings of Massenet operas, and I believe his Sancho and Athanaël were much praised. (Also a belated 90th birthday gift for him)> Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 16:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

As above, I've carried these points across to the peer review, where I hope I shall have the pleasure of further comments from you. Tim riley talk 21:40, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

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Foreign pronunciations

The recent change puts the cited books into the references and not into the sources. This needs to be fixed (WP:CITEVAR) if it is to remain. Tim riley talk 08:42, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted back the post because I checked LPD/CEPD which are both correct. Also, included IvanScrooge98 post that includes the sources & links. NKM1974 (talk) 18:06, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I think you may be missing the point. I don't accuse your citations of being wrong - merely not conforming with the citation format of the rest of article. The names of the books, ISBNs etc go in the Sources section, not in the references. If you attend to that the citations will be fine. Usual thing - author, title, date, publisher, location, ISBN. Tim riley talk 18:37, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Look at the references section: it includes more than Harvard references. Plus, how can you make a ref point to a templated source? イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 19:22, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

If using a template violates WP:CITEVAR then you should not use it. There are other, more suitable ways, to cite a book, as explained above. There are no Harvard references in the references section, by the way, unless someone has sneaked some in while I wasn't looking. Tim riley talk 22:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Then how are we supposed to cite the sources where we found the pronunciation? Please explain. イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 07:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

In the same way that I have done. Before changing the formatting or reverting it back, please DISCUSS this here first. (Regarding your signature, please see WP:SIG#Non-Latin and bring it into line with the requirements. Thanks) - SchroCat (talk) 08:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, SchroCat, for taking the time to explain so clearly and provide an example for the benefit of other editors. Very much obliged. Tim riley talk 12:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

You can't remove or comment out a new piece of content just because it didn't conform to the established citation style. The correct course of action is to fix it, not to remove it. That's literally the whole point of our editing policy. Nardog (talk) 15:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that was the only problem, as far as I could see. There were other problems, but this is all rather moot, as these have now been sorted out. - SchroCat (talk) 15:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Again, thanks to SchroCat for providing much-needed guidance to those in need of it. Tim riley talk 18:04, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring

An editor keeps attempting to alter the lead to insert "Richard Strauss" into the sentence "Although critics do not rank him among the handful of outstanding operatic geniuses such as Mozart, Verdi and Wagner ...". This is not a good idea, as it would make the lead contradict the main text, which draws on Grove's Dictionary (Rodney Milnes): "It would be absurd to claim that he was anything more than a second-rate composer; he nevertheless deserves to be seen, like Richard Strauss, at least as a first-class second-rate one." That, in turn, draws on Richard Strauss himself, who famously declared "After all, I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer". (See Norman Del Mar's Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary on His Life and Works, Volume 1, p. xii; also Michael Kennedy's Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma, p. 378.) So, we cannot call Strauss "among the handful of outstanding operatic geniuses" in the lead but then allude in the main text to his own and other experts' rating of him as second rate. See WP:LEAD, which requires a lead to be a faithful encapsulation of the main text. Tim riley talk 09:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Massenet Festival

Not wanting to trample on an FA, I stumbled across the Massenet Festival, which might warrant a brief mention in this article. Aza24 (talk) 08:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

You prick my conscience: an operabuff friend mentioned not so long ago that he had once attended this event. As he (a non-Wikipedian) was the person at whose instigation I overhauled the article for FAC back in 2014, it is a double dereliction on my part. I'll attend to it in the next day or so. Thank you so much for mentioning it. Tim riley talk 08:26, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I see you are an awfully kind friend! Were a friend of mine to suggest I work on a particular article, I might say something along the lines of "do it yourself". Oddly, Irvine doesn't seem to go into much detail on what the Massanet Festival actually is, but its article has some sources, and the grove article has brief line right before its "works" section. On a different note, apologies on putting a signature on Delibes—I seem to have gotten carried away. Aza24 (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Tim, I wonder if this has been forgotten—I'm happy to take care of it myself, but I thought I'd leave this gentle reminder first. Aza24 (talk) 19:25, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Aaargh! Profuse apologies. I had indeed forgotten, and will be greatly obliged if you will add the necessary words. Tim riley talk 19:52, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

A month late, but now done nonetheless! Aza24 (talk) 04:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

That's good – thank you kindly. It may be a month late but was still quicker than this absent-minded editor would have managed. Tim riley talk 14:35, 21 August 2021 (UTC)