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Leontyne Price discography

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Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
  • Source: *Jones, Randye (February 21, 2025). "Leontyne Price Biography". Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music.
Note this is a blog by music historian Randye Jones who has been published by Rowman & Littlefield and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She therefore qualifies as reliable under WP:SPS. That said all of the Grammy Awards are also viewable at https://www.grammy.com/artists/leontyne-price/9780 I just prefer the statistic be cited to something other than a WP:PRIMARY source which is why I cited Jones.
Created by 4meter4 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 116 past nominations.

4meter4 (talk) 02:07, 22 July 2025 (UTC).

First let me thank you for a substantial article on the work of one of the most outstanding singers ever! Based on plenty of excellent sources, offline sources accepted AGF, similar wording to her biography is no problem, no copyvio obvious. The image is licensed, and for the current hook, carries it alone. The number of Grammies is impressive but doesn't give some uninitiated reader the slightest bit about which music she made where. Imagine the image was not taken: just quantity would be left. We might mention beginning with Barber, or Bess, for which she stood for a long time, or Cleopatra written for her for the inauguration of the new Met, - whatever, just some music instead of only numbers. - In the article, I think that Mozart is a bit over-represented in the lead, - at least where I live she's much better known for Verdi. - Again: thank you for the article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:45, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt You seem to be confusing the focus/topic of the hook which should be on the discography of Leontyne Price and not on Leontyne Price or her stage career. What music she sang where is totally not appropriate for this article, because the article is about her recording career (largely studio recordings). Samuel Barber is an important composer but rather esoteric for a general audience. Most people won't know his repertoire, or care about it. Opening the Met is impressive, but Price never recorded Antony and Cleopatra on disc (although she did record the arias separately and the concert suite which had significant differences from the original score). The Met did film the premiere for television broadcast on PBS. However, this article is not a videography and does not include her filmed opera appearances so I don't think that really works as its off topic. Porgy and Bess is interesting, but Price spent much of her career distancing herself from the part of Bess which she mainly refused to sing even in concert after 1956 with only a few exceptions. She more often performed Clara or Serena's arias in concert later when she did on occasion agree to sing something from the opera. I wouldn't choose to highlight it. We could go the Verdi route as she made her international reputation as a Verdi singer and the discography could be tied into that, but honestly I think a general audience is going to gasp more at the number of Grammy Awards she won, and the article will get more readers with just focusing on that without bringing in anything else. It is also a recording focused hook which fits the requirement at WP:DYKHOOKSTYLE. Whatever hook is used needs to be clearly about the discography. I would request that you approve it because there is no good policy reason to hold this up, and I don't think your suggestions are likely to attract more readers, and are off topic.
As for emphasizing Mozart, one only has to look at the studio recordings she made to see that Mozart came up repeatedly with two complete studio opera recordings, a studio made Mozart CD, and then later a compilation album dedicated to Mozart which pulled together recordings from a bunch of different albums (such as the Prima Donna collection and some recordings she made with Karajan elsewhere). Plus there are a number of Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, and Cosi Fan Tutti live recordings from San Francisco, the Met, the Salzburg Festival, and the Vienna State Opera on disc (although I didn't include all of them). And she filmed Donna Anna and Pamina with NBC Opera Theatre which later had partial disc releases on minor labels, but again I didn't include everything and this article isn't a filmography. One just has to look at her records by the numbers to see there was a focus on four opera composers: Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and Barber. One could also include Strauss as she made a Grammy winning Strauss album and a studio recording of Ariadne auf Naxos; but two recordings is a bit short for me on balance to the others which crop up repeatedly. Remember the focus here is on her records not her stage appearances. But even if we were to include her stage work she sang Donna Elvira and Donna Anna, Pamina, and Konstanze under Karajan at a bunch of places in Europe (including all of them in Vienna and Salzburg and several in Berlin), and sang all of those roles at the San Francisco Opera and most of them at the Metropolitan Opera. Price may not be remembered as a great Mozart singer but she certainly was a busy one in the late 1950s and 1960s. Mozart was a core part of her regular rep in that period. Best.4meter4 (talk) 18:48, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining. I won't go into the Mozart topic, - just coming from Norrington ;) - I saw Gail Gilmore as the Composer in Ariadne, and while I liked her burning expressiveness, critics and some in the audience thought her voice wasn't made for Strauss. - Back to here: what I see is a wonderful image and a hook that leaves me cold because I'm not much into award collecting but music. The hook doesn't tell a reader if the Grammies were for singing or song-writing or what. You will for sure find someone else to approve that hook. I'd be open to something like ... that of the 13 Grammies she won, No. x was for - and you pick the one. - I didn't confuse recordings and biography, but think that - as she never had a DYK - we have a chance to pick something vital to make known about her. Sorry about not checking that she never recorded the Barber opera. It was a quick look early in the morning. I agree that the hook should be related to recording. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
In the hook, I think we should just say "recordings ...", not "the recordings". The article says "Considered "the Aida" of her generation,[37][38] Price made two different Grammy Award winning recordings of this opera for RCA", - I think that would be much more specific for a hook than numbers and only numbers.
ALT1: ... that Leontyne Price (pictured), who was considered "the Aida" of her generation, made two recordings of Verdi's opera that both won a Grammy Award? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 04:47, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I had time for a closer look at the table. I made some changes in the first operatic entry (studio), forcing the performers' cells to be a bit longer, to avoid white space. I also dropped the well-known composers, and dropped Price's given name. If you like it please follow for the other sections. I have a few suggestions:
  • Make the new-line code consistently "br /", or perhaps better use {{ubl}}
  • Have links to the labels once before the table and define abbreviations, used without links in the table, such as RCA Victor Red Seal (RCA RS), Decca Records (Decca).
  • Put notes regarding labels in the notes cell, instead of blowing up the label cell.
  • Drop composer given names and links, and for famous pieces, drop composers altogether.
  • I don't think explaining what Requiem means is needed in this article, nor adding African-American to spirituals.
  • We have a guideline to link every time within a table, but I think that's more important for sortable tables, - how many links for Karajan do we need? ... and do we need his given name again and again? (that goes for all the others the same, of course)
  • Perhaps give some thought to how the awards can show better, and how we could have less prose about them and their categories in the table. I could imagine coloured symboles for "won" and "nominated", and/or a table of just the awards with a link to the recording details. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt
  • I've mirrored the tables used in other discographies because my knowledge of template language/design is limited. Your proposed template language/code changes are beyond my skillset. The current template design is all I am personally able to contribute.
  • I personally dislike the removal of composers because generally the authors of all classical works are not well known among the general English speaking public (including big names like Mozart). You would be surprised how many Americans have never heard of Aida for example and would not know Giuseppe Verdi wrote it or even who he is. Ditto on the Ninth Symphony and Beethoven. (I can confidently say as a music educator in the United States that opera and classical music literacy is shockingly low among Americans younger than 50.) There is not a single work on the entire page that I think would be easily identifiable to most people in the USA.
  • I've been saying this to you for a while now at DYK with your hook proposals. You have to stop assuming any opera is easily recognizable or that the majority of readers will know the composers. They won't. You need to imagine that your reader has never been to an opera, does not know the names of any operas or opera composers, has never attended a symphony concert, and does not know any classical music. Statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts indicate that only 3.3% of the American population has seen an opera, and that as of 2022 only 4.6% has attended a classical music concert.
  • We are now in an age where classical music literacy in the United States has largely disappeared which partly correlates to disappearing music education programs in the American public school system; the shuttering of regional American opera companies and orchestras; and a decline in church attendance where people no longer experience classical sacred music. The arts and arts literacy is on a rapid decline in my country; at least as it relates to classical music in all its forms. So yes, the names of the composers are needed, as the United States has the predominant share of readers on the English wiki in comparison to any other group. While we write for a global audience, we have to be cognizant of what is going to be recognizable to our largest audience share.
  • If you feel there is some over linking by all means unlink as appropriate. If you wish to add in some abbreviations you may do so. I personally am not bothered by the current design because readers tend to jump to specific places in tables and may have missed the earlier wikilink/ abbreviation explanation. It would not bother me though to have your suggestion implemented if you care to copyedit. Please do not remove any composer names. Best. 4meter4 (talk) 17:06, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Let us please distinguish prose and table. In the prose, I always go for adding the composer, at least the surname. My feeling is that I usually, when looking at biographies, add more missing composer names than I delink what I think is redundant to the piece. In the table, I always try to be as succinct as possible, thinking of readers on mobiles or small devices. "Decca" is as informative as "Decca" followed by "Records" in the next line, "Karajan" as informative as "Herbert von Karajan" (split after "von"). After the prose introduced Verdi as the composer of Aida, there's no need to repeat that in the table. - I have no time for a major copyedit, sorry. I'll look at small things, but not today, having three bios on the main page, and two others (both opera singers) in the making.
I looked into Aida discography and had the new idea to drop details from her discography by linking to the opera's, Aida, Aida. (I understand now why the new-line breaks are not consistent: because the opera discographies are not.)
As for Aida in the hook, yes we will have many readers who never heard of an opera of that name (only perhaps of the cruiseships) but who might still be impressed that she did the same things twice and won a Grammy for both. They may never have heard "best Aida of her generation" but perhaps "best ... boxer of his generation" (a topic I saw on the ITN talk): without knowing about Aida before, they see her in a top position, and they are invited to learn something good to know, while a high number of trophies provides no idea what the person stands for. The statistics you mention should perhaps make us talk more about opera than less, or the topic will die, like some languages. We will also have readers who know what Aida is ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:32, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Requesting a new opinion.4meter4 (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

@4meter4: Not comfortable using Randye's blog for that purpose per WP:BLPSPS.--Launchballer 22:43, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
@Launchballer: The statistics are also readily viewable at the Grammy Award website url provided above. Plus the individual Grammy Award wins and nominations are all cited to published secondary book sources in the article itself. There isn't a verifiability issue.4meter4 (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
Alright. I swapped out the source in the article and approve ALT0 only; subsequent hooks introduce extraneous information.--Launchballer 16:38, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
@Launchballer did you mean the original hook? or alt1? We don't have an alt0 hook.4meter4 (talk) 17:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
ALT0 is shorthand for the original hook.--Launchballer 17:24, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining. I never made that connection, obviously. And thanks for the review.4meter4 (talk) 17:29, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Just a note to the closer that the photo was verified by Gerda above. The photographer sent in the correct documentation to wikipedia to release it. The same photo was used on the cover of one of her albums so it would be nice to feature it with the article. Best.4meter4 (talk) 20:13, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
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