- Operabase
-
Operabase is an on-line database of opera performances, opera houses and companies, performers themselves as well as their agents. Operabase, found at operabase.com, is owned and operated by Operabase Ltd, a company located in Luton, England. The (web)site started in 1996 as the hobby of Mike Gibb, becoming his full-time occupation three years later.[1] The database is now operated by Gibb and Muriel Denzler, who provide services to opera professionals for a fee, although the site is searchable by any web user at no charge.
As has been noted by Gibb and Denzler in an article on the European opera service organization's website, opera-europe.org (an organization similar to those which exist in the US and Canada, OPERA America and Opera.ca) they provide specialized services to opera professionals, with the site including "casting tools, artist records, management details, productions information". But they emphasize that "the site was originally created for the general public, who still provide 96% of its users".[2] Operabase "is international in flavour; its information spans Australia and Eindhoven and it is translated into seven languages."[1]
By its tenth anniversary, the site received "about 10,000 visitors a day to the public site, who look at over four million pages a month between them. Of these, fewer than half use English, 17% use German, 12% Italian, 10% French, 9% Spanish."[2] In 2006, the free public site was estimated to have 30,000 performances, 20,000 artists, 950 addresses of opera companies, festivals and theatres and 230 agencies' contact details and rosters. In June 2011, the site shows 27,000 performances, 35,000 artists, and 600 companies, with 19 active language sections.[3]
A new feature compares five opera seasons, 2005/06 up to 2009-10. This is the "Statistics" section, which enables users to search for the total number of performances by country; per capita by country; by the number of performances in each city; by rankings of 1005 composers (with Giuseppe Verdi topping the list with 2259 performances of his operas; by modern composers; by the rankings of 60 female composers with Kaija Saariaho having 15 performances given of her work; and, finally, by the number of operas given (2153), with the list topped by 451 performances of Mozart's The Magic Flute, followed closely by Verdi's La traviata with 447.[4]
References
- Notes
- ^ a b Higgins, The Guardian (London)
- ^ a b Mike Gibb and Muriel Denzler, "Operabase's 10th Anniversary" on opera-europa.org
- ^ Operabase.com main page
- ^ The Operabase Statistics section
- Sources
Categories:- Online databases
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