Thread: Discussion: The 2020 Talk Classical Top Recommended Opera CDs and DVDs

Hello. It's been 4 years since this forum last agreeded on a top 100 Operatic works and voted on polls to choose their favourite and most reccomended recordings. On the ocassion of the 5 year anniversary in 2020, we could reopen a new process and poll.

There haven't been many audio operatic releases during this time, but members have changed significantly and many of the opera fans online weren't part of this forum by 2014 when it all started (2nd edition o be more precise). Although controversial things like Opera Depot and Youtube have helped to raise the concern about historical performances, the most significant change in the operatic market apart from composition has been the load of Opera DVDs and Blu-Rays that have been released. I think it's in order to make a new poll about our favourite recordings but I would also like that we all discuss our favourite compositions, sharing room with all our biases for composition eras.

I don't know how we should organise to choose the Top 100 opera. I'm in favour of opening a Game thread. I would love members like Art Rock, Bulldog and science to share their reccomendations for a process like this. I do remember that for the last poll of recordings, once we all had the top 100 compositions, we opened a thread where a moderator presented a work and members had like 5 days to post (not vote in a poll) their favourite recordings on CD and DVD (if they had an opinion, as they could pass). We could repeat that.

I want to open now that discussion, especially focused on the choice of the Top 100 Opera compositions. And to express a couple of points from my own opinion.

• I volunteer myself to design, code and post the results of the Recordings poll, with wide pictures, harmonic typography, just limited by the Bulletin features. Most of the posts of the 2015 TC Winners have broken links.
• I don't think we should do a rank of 100 operas from best to "worst", but rather just come up a list of the 100 TC favourite operas. The Order of voting and also results would only be conditioned by the date of premiere, from older to newer (we could also open a thread to clear any doubt about the dates and running order anyway).

I think we have more than enough with 12 months to get our new Winners thread. I would make the effort to include the ASINs of all the products or just warn that the winners are OOP.

2011 Thread of 272 TCs Favourite operas
There's a thread for the 101-272 rank inside, but I can't find the thread for the order of Top 100.

I think the typical games as introduced to TC by Bulldog are not very suited for establishing a top 100 operas. They might come in handy when we're talking about best recordings for each opera though.

For the top100 (even non-ranked), I think a conventional approach is more suited. Have each participant post their own preferences (10? 20? 30? ranked? not ranked?) and award points accordingly (still many options how to award the points, the one to be used should be clarified upfront). A drawback is of course, that this requires all participants to read the first post - which in my experience many fail to do. Simplest may therefore be to ask for non-ranked lists with a maximum number of X and award one point each to every opera mentioned. If people want to post shorter lists, they can.

One could also combine approaches... have the first 75 (for instance) determined via the method lined out above, and take the next 50 or so into a Bulldoggy game to determine which 25 will be included in the top 100 in that example.

One final note: my experience is whatever the subject is, some people will start stretching the boundaries. I'd advice you to be clear upfront what you would accept as an opera (e.g. operetta? musical?).

An alternative, which may be similar to what was actually used in the past: everyone posts say 20 favourite operas. Based on number of mentions, the first 10 operas are determined and qualify for the top100. A new round in the same way (except the already qualified works) yields the next 10. And so on.

I wonder if there should be a forum or sub forum specifically for TC rankings? A different thread for each opera. That would make it really easy for people like me who want to look up the rankings to not have to page through dozens of pages of listings to get to the opera of interest. So it would amount to a subforum of say 100 threads. And perhaps after the 100 threads are established (could be polls but would not include any new, upcoming operas), the moderators could lock the sub forum to new threads so we don't get extraneous discussion threads going.

I don't know, just a crazy thought. May work. May not.,

Originally Posted by Art Rock

An alternative, which may be similar to what was actually used in the past: everyone posts say 20 favourite operas. Based on number of mentions, the first 10 operas are determined and qualify for the top100. A new round in the same way (except the already qualified works) yields the next 10. And so on.

This is a very good approach too, so if anyone makes the mistake not to read the first post, there isn't such a difference in the poll. I would argue that we go slowly over the course of 10 weeks. It could be a bit slow to do a weekly vote but it would be easier to remember to put a weekly vote instead of calculating 5 or 4 days. Depending on the time our members have.

Each member should think of their top opera recordings before beginning so they can cross out the ones that have passed to the top. No room for tactical vote.

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And my ranking is done: a top84 operas that I have seriously listened to. I would like to add FROSCH somewhere but it's like I'll watch soon Ernani and Luisa Miller beforehand for my challenges.

What about everyone voting for [up to] their top 50 or 100? That'll yield more interesting results.

Originally Posted by Dr. Shatterhand

What about everyone voting for [up to] their top 50 or 100? That'll yield more interesting results.

I think that wouldn't be a very differentiating method as 50 or 100 is a huge number and the best operas would just get very similar scores (I suppose that even people who don't like Mozart or Wagner wouldn't leave one of their more famous operas out of top 100). So although that may differentiate 'not-so-good-operas' quite well, I'm not 100% sure whether it would be good for top 30 operas, but that's only my opinion.

Originally Posted by annaw

I think that wouldn't be a very differentiating method as 50 or 100 is a huge number and the best operas would just get very similar scores (I suppose that even people who don't like Mozart or Wagner wouldn't leave one of their more famous operas out of top 100). So although that may differentiate 'not-so-good-operas' quite well, I'm not 100% sure whether it would be good for top 30 operas, but that's only my opinion.

I agree, If it was for a rank, I would award the best positions with exponential points instead of consecutive, like 60, 40, 30, 20, 15, 10, 8, 7...

But only if we were to go with the top 50 or 100 instead of the top 20 game Art Rock was proposing. I am more eager to try the AR one.

It makes sense to use the same voting and scoring process detailed in the 2015 thread. That way we can accurately see how tastes have changed and how operas have risen and fallen in rankings over the years.

Here are the original instructions from Faustian:

The 2015 TC Top 100+ Most Recommended Operas List

Voting process:

To those new to the voting process, we normally do a two-step voting process and build up the list 10 works at a time. This allows people to continually review works as the project goes along instead of voting for everything in one shot.

First round is the nomination round where people can nominate up to 10 works. The top 10 works from the nomination round become the next 10 works on the list, though their final ordering is determined by the second round.

Second round is the voting round, where people vote for their five favorites of the top 10 works from the first round. This is so that all voters can have input in the final order.

The scoring method is as follows:

Nomination round:

The points are determined by the ranking of each work as it was initially nominated. 15 points for the work in first, 14 for second, 13 for third, and so on with the tenth work receiving 6. This method is to weigh in both the ranking and the number of times the work was nominated. So, a nominated work that appears first on three lists would beat out a work that is nominated tenth on 7 different lists.

Voting round:

The scoring is quite similar for the voting round with the works receiving 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 points in the respective rank that they are voted in. The last work in the voting round will receive 3 points no matter what, so if a vote has only 3 works listed, than the works will receive 5, 4, and 3 points, respective to their order. Again, the reason behind this method is to create a balance between the number of times the work is nominated and its rank.

Honorable mentions:

At the end of the project, we also like to keep a list of honorable mentions containing every work that was nominated but didn't make the final list. Hence in the very last nomination round we give people 20 votes instead of 10 to collect more recommendations. Even if some of your works do not make the final list, your input is valued.

Double posted by accident.

Are we going to be nominating/voting for works or recordings?

Wagner's Ring presents its usual problems. If it's considered one entry, it sure has an advantage over other operas.