Talk:Theater am Kärntnertor

Etymology

I am guessing that the name of this theater is formed on the following basis:

• "Kärnten" = the German word for Carinthia, a province of Austria
• "Kärntner" = adjective, "pertaining to Carinthia" (an unaccented vowel is dropped, much as in "Zürcher", "pertaining to Zürich")
• "Kärntnertor" = "Kärntner gate" (i.e., in the old Vienna city wall). Perhaps the road running through this gate led towards Carinthia?

But I'm way too uncertain to put this in. Can anyone help? Opus33 16:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think I can answer my own question: "Carinthian gate" appears repeatedly on the web as an English-language version, particular for older sources. Opus33 19:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have the date when the Tor was demolished and a reference, it would make a good footnote. --Wetman 20:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

A matter of prestige

• "most prestigious" was deleted by someone with the edit summary "Hmm, let's just get rid of "most prestigious" for now. If someone finds a source for this surprising claim, it can go back in." Hardly a surprising claim; I think we can just assume that the Kaiserliches und Königliches Hoftheater zu Wien was "the most prestigious theatre in Vienna," until we have an alternative candidate. It would surely be an uphill climb to prove that a court theatre in any eighteenth-nineteenth century Central European city was not the most prestigious. --Wetman 06:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a lot of information available on this theatre - it is linked to many other WP articles or will be - and it will not be a problem to clarify it's importance. There were other theatres in Vienna but we can probably confirm that this was the largest one. If I have time I will try to contribute some info later. -- Kleinzach 08:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

That will be great. This is presently little more than a stub: there are many premieres and debuts at the Kärntnertortheater besides Martha. --Wetman 09:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello Wetman, Sorry if that was rude. But I think that factually we're on thin ice here. You've nominated the Kärntnertortheater as most important solely on the basis of its bearing the title "Kaiserliches und Königliches Theater". But it seems that more than one Viennese theater bore this title. One reads at http://iir-hp.wu-wien.ac.at/seminar/fallbsp.html the opinion that it was the Burgtheater that was most important, and that the sign above the entrance indicated that it, too, was a "Imperial and Royal" theater:

"Die Burg", wie sie die Wiener nennen, ist die traditionsreichste, einst auch die bedeutenste, deutsche Sprechbühne. Die Bühne wurde 1776 durch Kaiser Joseph II. als "Hoftheater" gegründet, doch mit der Anweisung, ein "deutsches National-Theater" zu sein. Später nannte sie sich "Hof- und Nationaltheater", über dem Eingang steht "Kaiserlich-königliches Hofburgtheater" [translation on request]

This in fact was why I thought it was "surprising" when you nominated the Kärntnertortheater as most prestigious--my natural guess would have been the Burgtheater.

So my judgment is that unless you find a reference source that says that the Kärntnertortheater was generally regarded as the most important in Vienna, we shouldn't be saying it. Yours truly, Opus33 15:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Your description and link to the Burgtheater, which supplemented the older Kärntnertortheater as Joseph II's all-German Hoftheater, will certainly broaden the article's context. Usually more information gives me a more balanced picture, rather than less, so I'll be particularly grateful. --Wetman 00:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Wetman. I'm sorry, but I don't think you got my point. You're doing original research, which is verboten on Wikipedia, so I'm reverting. Sorry to quarrel with you, but the rules are the rules... Opus33 17:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Was Wetman doing original research?

Come now! None of us are doing original research here. What we should be doing is getting at the real facts - by using proper reference books. -- Kleinzach 04:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

What I had in mind is WP:SYN, which is part of the No Original Research policy page. Wetman inferred that the Theater am Kärntnertor was the most important in Vienna, simply because it had an imperial license. That's against the rules.

To go further, I personally feel that WP:SYN is a very good policy. We should only include inferences made by experts in a field, because only the experts know all the evidence and can weigh it properly. So, in the present case, someone like H. C. Robbins Landon or James Webster would know a great deal about all of theaters of Vienna, and could offer a really informed opinion. Random Wikipedia editors, such as Wetman, you, or me, are just guessing. Opus33 15:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want to contribute to historical articles like this one I suggest using Grove or Oxford not ephemeral amateur websites. As for mounting campaigns against wrong inferences in WP articles - of which there must be hundreds of thousands of examples - please don't let us slow you down quoting the same old capitalised gibberish - go for it! -- Kleinzach 00:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Italian operas as elite entertainment

Wetman, you write in your edit summary: "Italian operas were indeed "a more elite form of entertainment" is a familiar element of European social history". What evidence is there for Italian being preferred by social elites in Vienna? Wasn't Italian one of the languages of the Austrian Empire? -- Kleinzach 12:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello, since this is controversial, I did a bit of checking.

First of all, Italian was a language of the Empire, but only because the Empire had acquired provinces in Italy. Ordinary Viennese people probably couldn't speak Italian--that's why the popular theater was in German.

Things were different for aristocrats. They were often taught Italian as children, and they also often went on the Grand tour to Italy in young adulthood (for an example, see House of Esterházy, discussing Nikolaus II). As a result, when they went to an opera in Italian, they had a good chance of understanding a fair amount of the words. It is this advantage that makes it reasonable to say that Italian operas were an elite form of entertainment.

One source for these claims is http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JMH/journal/issues/v76n2/760201/760201.web.pdf, an excellent social history article. See p. 274 for an example of Italian being taught to children of the elite, and pp. 263-272 (well worth mining further for this article) for the popular character of performances at the Kärntnertortheater. Cheers, Opus33 16:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Good research - though I couldn't get the pdf. Is the address correct? However the popularity and otherwise of Italian opera was also a matter of fashion. This is clear in both London and Paris where the public vaccilated in its support of vernacular as opposed to Italian opera, (see for example the way Londoners turned against Handel's Italian operas or the Querelle des Bouffons in Paris). It's also complicated because we are dealing with at least two main forms of Italian opera which must have appealed differently. That why I would prefer to see the word 'elite' out - it implies a simplistic explanation which I think we should avoid. -- Kleinzach 08:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, whatever. I do think that we should remember that our encyclopedia must be read by quite a few precocious children--curious and smart, but not yet equipped with a lot of world knowledge. Putting in little clues like "elite" helps this important subset of our audience.

Re. that link that wouldn't work: I suspect it's a pay site for which my ISP is ponying up the money; sorry it didn't work for you. Here are a couple passages from the article, for what they're worth:

"The first Viennese salon, that of Charlotte von Greiner (ne´e Hieronymous, 1739–1815), was in fact the direct offspring of the Theresian court. Charlotte was born in Hungary, the daughter of an officer in the Habsburg army. Her mother died soon after giving birth to her, and in 1744 she became an orphan when her father, whose regiment had just been transferred to Vienna, died of tuberculosis. Maria Theresia subsequently learned of the orphaned girl’s plight from a chambermaid and arranged to have Charlotte brought to court, where she was entrusted to a governess of the imperial family and given an excellent education that included French, Italian, and Latin. At the age of thirteen she became a personal attendant of the empress, and after 1762 her chief responsibility was to read aloud to Maria Theresia in the evenings.

"But what helped fashion a particularly close relationship between stage and audience in the burlesques of Kurz and Prehauser was their extemporaneity, a distinctive feature of the Ka¨rtnertor stage up to 1770. Louis XIV’s government had banned the use of extemporized dialogue in performances on Paris’s two leading stages, the Come´die Franc¸aise and the Come´die Italienne. The Licensing Act of 1737 had done the same for the London stage by requiring theater managers at Drury Lane and Covent Garden to submit the text of a performance in advance to a censor. In Kurz’s and Prehauser’s performances at the Ka¨rtnertor, much of the comedy was improvised, although the music and arias were written down. Off-the-cuff allusions to recent events, the use of vulgar gestures and sexual innuendo to spice up routines, bantering back and forth with the audience—such improvisation was standard at the Ka¨rtnertor. One easily imagines a packed house, in an almost Dionysian frenzy, urging Hanswurst or Bernardon on to ever greater verbal or gesticular excesses (recall Lady Montague’s description of Hanswurst mooning his public), which was another reason theater reformers were so hostile to the comedies of Kurz and Prehauser. “The more depraved the characters,” wrote one critic, “the more applause they win.” An improvised performance, unlike one based on a written text, was immune to censorship, which was why the official campaign against Kurz and Prehauser focused its efforts on ensuring that all performances at the Ka¨rtnertor conformed to a written text submitted in advance to a theater censor."

One might add that Kurz's godson Emanuel Schikaneder was a later exponent of this kind of theater; and so Papageno was a sort of descendent of Hanswurst... Opus33 16:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I am unconvinced. The second quotation above relates to the popular burlesque-style spoken theatre not opera. (I'm sure we can agree that opera was a more refined, expensive, elite pastime than burlesque.) On the other hand German opera i.e. Singspiele addressed different audiences, just as Italian opera could be both classical drama and farce. At the 'high' end of German opera we have Johann Wolfgang Goethe himself, theatre administrator in Weimar, writing a series of German-language libretti (there is an article on him in relation to opera in Grove) and people like Johann Friedrich Reichardt who composed the music for them. (Of course, Goethe also liked Italian opera, just as he liked Italian culture in general.) Representing Italian/German as the high/low levels of opera doesn't work IMO. -- Kleinzach 03:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Austrian coin issue: Revert fighting

Dear all,

I added information about an Austrian coin that has this theater on it, for me it is reliable, sourced, accurate and relevant. It definitely shows the importance of the building from a different angle. This information has been in this article for almost one year, and actually another editor changed slightly long time ago. Today I just fixed an anchor, and Opus33 decided to removed the whole thing by saying "Nobody cares about commemorative coins except numismatists. Please do not add this irrelevant kind of material to articles. Your cooperation is appreciated".

So since when is Wikipedia specific to some people and not to others? Shall I get out of Wikipedia and do my contributions somewhere else? The article is very small and the relevance of this coin on this article is definitely out of the question. So where is the rule that says that information of coins is not accepted in Wikipedia?

Let me clarify that the user in question and I has a long story of reverts in the past, where he asked for backups in the Wikiproject Music Composers to remove my additions to other articles. Several editors from that project said that information of coins should not be included in biographies of composers and I accepted it … but now this? That is too much, IMHO.

Can anyone comment please? The question is why can this information not show in this article? Miguel.mateo (talk) 06:22, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

My view is that this coin would be better placed on a page about numismatics. The overwhelming majority of readers of this present article are interested in the history, architecture and performances that have been given in this building - not in a coin that just happens to include an image of the theatre. Sorry, but I don't think it belongs here. --Kleinzach 07:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

While I appreciate your view, you have not mentioned what is the harm of having one sentence and one image of something that for others may be relevant in an article that is almost a stub. I could argue from the same angle that the section "First performances of operas and other works" is also questionable because it does not interest me, don't you think? I want to go to the roots of the problem, what is the issue of having something that it is indeed relevant to others and it does not harm the layout of the article? Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 07:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

We are here to serve the readers. They are ill-served by badly organized and misplaced information. As you are the only person wanting to place these coins in music-related articles, I ask you to do the right thing and voluntarily remove them. That will be appreciated as it will mean we can all get back to contributing to WP without being distracted. --Kleinzach 07:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is this a music related article? You have not answered what is the harm of the contribution I did, which to me, as well as other readers is relevant. Again, it does support the relevance of the building from another angle. Have you been in Austria? Do you know you can find that coin in circulation (rarely but possible)? Miguel.mateo (talk) 10:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"You have not answered what is the harm of the contribution I did". Yes I did. I said "the readers . . . are ill-served by . . . misplaced information". The readers come first, not our own private interests. Now please remove the coin. --Kleinzach 10:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I can exactly use your words in my defence, the readers come first not your own private interests. Miguel.mateo (talk) 11:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

In what way does this image harm the article? It only enhances the readers knowledge of entities related to the theater. To obstruct the readers view of related endeavors seems, to me, to be rather repressive and not at all in the readers best interest. To preconceive what a visitor might find educational and prevent an obvious enlargement of value is rather narrow minded and short sighted. Also, to categorize it as "badly organized and misplaced" and "readers . . . are ill-served by . . . misplaced information" are just inapproprate characterizations that are far from fact. Editing is collaborative. Editor:Mateo has a long history of precise and concise additions to many far-ranging articles. His exceptional addition to this article should be embraced and valued rather than hampered. Please reconsider.--Buster7 (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Buster7: Opus33 and I have been longterm contributors to this article. May I ask what your interest is? Coins? --Kleinzach 01:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

And once again Kleinzach clearly violates WP:OWN. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Where exactly in WP:OWN does it say that longterm contributors are not entitled to have opinions about articles? --Kleinzach 03:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of getting in the middle of this, I can see why you wouldn't want a whole section of information about the coin, but I don't see the harm in mentioning that the coin exists and linking to it. It could just be a sentence under "See also" so that readers know it exists. It only enhances the historical importance of the theater, but wouldn't detract from the main content of the article. And for the record, I don't have any interest in coins whatsoever. Jvr725 (talk) 02:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

My only interest in coins is the ones in my pocket. My interest in Wikipedia, however, is a bit more important. Somewhere there is a suggestion that a wise editor actually edit and create articles NOT in his or her expertise. I think it is to prevent a staunch sense of ownership and a resistence to collaborate. Long term editors are certainly entitled to their opinions. What they are not entitled to is the lock and key to prevent fellow Wikipedians from making good faith edits.--Buster7 (talk) 04:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

--Buster7 (talk) 04:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Information regarding the commemorative coin seems helpful to me in judging the theatre's prestige. The 1st sentence in this article is "… was a prestigious theatre …" — which is unsourced; with a commemorative coin, that statement becomes self-evident. But even if its prestige were otherwise sourced, I would still find that paragraph provides interesting and pertinent information — although it could be a bit more compact.

As to the separation of historical and numismatic interests, let me draw this analogy: if a person is notable enough to be put on a stamp, that stamp is usually shown on that person's page at Wikipedia as well as on whatever relevant page in the philatelistic domain. Or, if a person gains an award, that fact is mentioned on that person's page and in the page listing that award's recipients.

I have a small formal quibble: why are the sections about the coin and the one above it ("See also") formatted as bullet lists? Shouldn't the order of these two section be reversed? Or could they be combined?

I think omitting the fact of the coin diminishes this article's information value. Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

However the coin doesn't commemorate the theatre, it commemorates the Anthem of Europe — another article where this coin and text also appear. --Kleinzach 06:29, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I must first apologize for been out for almost 24 hours due to personal problems, while I did not want to keep this issue hanging out. Thanks to all the fellow editors that have back me up, very much appreciated. As I continue saying, and I think that Michael Bednarek had say it already, this coin definitely shows, from a different angle, the importance of the theatre and what it means to Austrian and European history. Simply adding one paragraph to it explaining about the coin sounds very logical to me and extremelly relevant. I wonder why the other two editors are against such a relevant information. Is it so difficult to see the relevance?

I accepted to remove the coins in the Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven articles, although I am not convinced yet that the removal is needed, to cooperate with other editors that were against and their biggest arguments is that the composer biography wiki group does not recommend such additions to those articles. I think that those terms do not apply this time, specially in this article which is almost a stub.

If UNESCO called this building "UNESCO Heritage", woudln't it make sense to write a whole section to explain that? I honestly see no difference ... Regards, Miguel.mateo (talk) 09:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Miguel.mateo and M. Bednarek. The information is relevant and interesting. It really is no harm in this case. --Vejvančický (talk) 12:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Coin description

The coin's description currently contains these words: "… opening notes of his mentioned symphony"; that is incorrect. My reading of the score suggests those notes are the baritone/cello notes at the beginning (bar 5) of the second Allegro assai section of the symphony's 4th movement — the choral theme which is introduced earlier in a rhythmic variation in the first Allegro assai section (bar 92, counting from the beginning of the movement); see also: Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)#Fourth movement. I suggest to change the wording here and at Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Austria)#Theater am Kärntnertor to something like "… opening notes of the choral theme from the 4th movement of his mentioned symphony". Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Michael Bednarek for catching that, I have already changed the two articles and I have also sent a mail to the Austrian Mint so they change their web site, which is also incorrect. Best regards, Miguel.mateo (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the Austrian Mint's description ("… die einleitenden Noten der 'Ode an die Freude'") is wrong. Ode an die Freude (= "Ode to Joy") is what I called the choral theme. Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This is what is written in English in the Austrian Mint Website "The reverse side of the coin shows the old Kärntnertor Theatre ("Theatre at the Carinthian Gate" which stood near the present Opera House until 1870). It was here that Beethoven's 9th symphony with the "Ode to Joy" was first publidly performed. The opening notes of the melody in the symphony itself and a cameo portrait of Beethoven complete the design." ... isn't that incorrect as you properly mentioned? Miguel.mateo (talk) 03:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's clear now, they say "... The opening notes of the melody [Ode to Joy] in the symphony ..." not "... the opening notes of the symphony ...". That tiny change in words must have been lost during the copy/edit process. Thanks for bringing this up! A mail to the Austria Mint asking for forgiveness is in place ;) Miguel.mateo (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright infringement

The use of the coin image in this article is a copyright infringement, see Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions#Commemorative_coin_images. I hope Miguel.mateo will kindly volunteer to remove it now. --Kleinzach 04:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Let the discussion finish first, if it is copyright infrigement, I will make myself the bot to remove them all. But even if what you're saying is right, that does not give you right to remove the image and the prose added in the articles. Miguel.mateo (talk) 04:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking you to remove it. Instead you are involved in about a dozen (how many in total?) simultaneous edit wars, see [1], [2], [3] etc. --Kleinzach 05:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearly this non-free coin image fails WP:NFC#Images and must be removed. There is nothing in the use of the coin image that adds to the reader's understanding or knowledge of the topic that is not conveyed by the prose. There is no critical commentary about the coin itself that relates to the topic, so it must go, until such time as this coin comes into the public domain. Sorry Miguel.mateo there is no story here to justify the use of a non-free image. ww2censor (talk) 16:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, the Austrian mint's web page says, "The content of these pages is subject to copyright. Any reproduction other than for private use (publication, duplication, distribution to third parties, printing in the media) is dependent on the written consent from the Austrian Mint." This seems very, very clear, no? So I would suggest to Miguel: stop fighting the law and your fellow editors, get out your computer, and write a polite permission-request letter to the Austrian Mint. Sincerely, Opus33 (talk) 16:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Miguel is claiming fair use under American law. That is a right which doesn't need the copyright holder's permission. But we can only invoke it sparingly, hence the requirement that the image must add something significant to the topic of the article. It's for this talk page to decide whether how the building was represented on a coin is significant. I would say if it was on mass-circulation banknote, that quite possibly would be significant. But a postage stamp, or a specialist not-in-mass-circulation commemorative coin is harder to make a case for (though not necessarily impossible in some cases), as they are simply not such significant objects. Jheald (talk) 22:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)