Talk:Swan Lake

VGA consideration

1. The article must be about a subject which belongs in Wikipedia.

 Done

2. The article must be comprehensive.

 Done

3. The article should be several kilobytes long, not including infoboxes, images, references, other websites, interwiki, and categories.

 Done

4. The article must have gone through a few revisions, possibly by different editors.

A few revisions  Done, but essentially the work of a single editor. It could use a couple sets of outside eyes.

5. The article must be placed in the appropriate category. It must have at least one interwiki link.

With the exception of Category:Ballets,  Done. It is already in two subcategories of Ballets.

6. The last few revisions should be minor changes.

 Done

7. All important terms should be linked and there must be no red links left.

And here is where I usually have issues.. The sentence structure is great. To me, this may be one of the best articles I've seen in a long time based on structure. Short, simple, very easy to understand. That being said, there are terms.. These range from ambiguity to simple linking. Spell is commonly thought of from a language/alphabetical standpoint, magic isn't the first thing to come to mind and if not directly stated "a magic spell", should be linked to magic (both preferably). Many of these fall under 2 headings: unsimple terms and simple terms which should probably be linked anyway to provide the reader addition information (usually on related/similar interest).

unsimple terms

• Prince, Act and sets (ambig, verb forms are much more common), swan, failure/blamed (people did not like the ballet because of the sets, costume and dance - should have a ref on this either way), staged (ambig, performance), inspector, repertory, Imperial Theatres, invited, accepted, commissioned, ghost, water sprite, temple, "bringing together", "escape from reality", stress, Czarist Russia, impossible (and probably should be was impossible as written), disguise, tutor, peasants, .. it goes on.. I stopped listing at around Act 1 but this should give you an idea of what issues are likely through the rest.

simple terms

• includes Music, Dance.. things we have pages on already that expand the information given to the reader. This is most important in areas they have shown they are already interested in by coming to this page to begin with. This isn't a simplicity thing so much as expanding awareness of the rest the site.

8. If there are any illustrations, they must be pertinent to the article. They must also be properly labelled.

Pertinent and mostly labeled. The two infoboxes on <composer>'s ballets use unlabeled pictures. While the title of the box (directly above the image) easily implies that the picture is of that composer, the image could be labeled. Also, several of the image labels have terms which should be linked (Pierina Legnani, fouetté en tournant and Czech Republic being the ones that caught my eye)

9. There must be no templates pointing to the fact that the article needs improvement.

As an extention of 7, this one is usually a stickler for me. Most of the issues are minor word tweaks and linking. There seems no blaring need for a maintenance template here at all.

10. Content that is from books, journal articles or other publications needs to be referenced.

There are ample references. The layout of the note/reference section is a bit odd to me though. Functional, but you may want to consider combining the two with the bibliography first and then reference list as people see what the books are before getting what each author is attributed for. Also, there is no reference for what information Wiley's work applies to. Due to the shortness of the notes (left-right, not up/down/number of notes), a two column layout would probably look better by leaving less white space on the page.

In addition to the straight requirements, I do see issues with the libretto writers. First, they shouldn't have top billing in the article. Putting them in line 2 before even mentioning the main composer is probably too much. They may not even need to be listed in the intro, just in the section on its creation. They should also be better identified. As they are (historically speaking) secondary and likely only notable for this fact (no article for them), a little more information (position, profession, something) should be included. As such they are just an unknown name with no useful context. Reading the En: article on the subject, there is also the issue that it seems one or the other of them wrote it. It is historically unknown exactly which but this article makes it seem they wrote it as a team which does not seem to be the case. --Creol(talk) 03:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

VGA comments

My comments:

General

• The entire "What people thought about the ballet" section is unreferenced. Please reference, especially the quotes.

 Done

• The Wiley, Roland John book is unused. Make a reference to it, or remove it from the references.

 Done

• a DAB

 Done

Lead

• I would prefer mention the first link as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and then for the rest of the article use Tchaikovsky, so the reader can establish that Tch. is a name.

 Done

• It was a failure. According to who? Critics thought it was a failure would be better here, with a link to critics. Same goes for This time the ballet was a success.

 Done

Origin and history of the ballet

• It would be helpful to name his sister, so the text can be more clear

 Done

• This ballet was based on a German fairy tale called "The Lake of the Swans". citation needed.
• The citation listed--3 Warrack, John--refers to a Fontyne/Nureyev performance and "The Lake of Swans" is part of "Swan Lake" itself. I cannot find any evidence of a German Fairy Tale called "The Lake of Swans"... Hence, believe this is inaccurate.

• They likely based it upon discussions with friends. They also used tales from Johann Musäus's Volksmärchen der Deutschen (1782–6). 1. citation needed for both sentences. 2. Why the year range, which should be 1782–86? Perhaps add more context about what Volksmärchen der Deutschen was.

 Done

• The Swan Maidens of the ballet are related to the many supernatural females of 19th century ballet. such comma instead of period here.

 Done

• link rubles

 Done

Composition

• Tchaikovsky was new to writing ballet music. can I get a specific year?

 Done

• Delibes's music was lovely and tuneful. Note "To Tch.", and a reference here is needed.

 Done

• He started work on Swan Lake in August 1875. I thought he started writing at his sister's house in 1871? That was a simple ballet for children. It wasn't until 1875 that he began the theatrical piece known today as Swan Lake.

 Done

Characters in the ballet

• Looks good, but perhaps add a sentence on each character for context.

 Done

I will review the rest when you respond to these comments. Albacore (talk · changes) 19:57, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

More

Mostly basic stuff for the moment. I'll have a more extensive look later.

• The footnotes for Warrack needs fixing: there is Warrick 1966, Warrack 1979, Warrack 1973. Which year is it? Is there more than one book?

Yes, there is more than one book.

 Done

• There are links that need disambiguating.

 Done

• Anything wrong with linking escape to wikt:escape? To get rid of the redlink.

 Done Osiris (talk) 03:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)