The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Nomination withdrawn. (non-admin closure)‎ Geschichte (talk) 19:18, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Deborah Sasson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Tagged for sourcing issues since 2019. Contains no independent sources with significant coverage. Not clear the subject meets WP:GNG. 4meter4 (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Bands and musicians and Women. 4meter4 (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Germany and Massachusetts. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 18:05, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I will look into it but have company for several days. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:37, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I looked now: Operissimo, Bayreuth: she sang at Metropolitan Opera (don't know yet what), at the Bayreuth Festival (one of the Parsifal flower maidens alongside her husband in the title role, also the six following years without him), and she wrote at least two musicals and made recordings: seems notable. I have no more time today. Her prime was 40 years ago which makes searching difficult. Anybody to find about a claimed Metropolitan Opera competition? It's not the famous one. - Please reduce the tag-bombing a bit, I don't have time even for that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:44, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  No traces at Met Archive, the competition Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions of the Air doesn't exist anymore. Grimes2 (talk) 17:40, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Agree that she may not have appeared with the Met, but finalist in the "Auditions" looks supported by three reliable sources which all rely on GLS. Perhaps she was dropped from later editions of GSL as mainly a pop and musical singer then.

  Thanks to Ipigott for the Bayreuth ref, I added the Online Merker which even has a birthday. The article is rewritten. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:27, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: As she's covered in the Großes Sängerlexikon, she is considered notable.--Ipigott (talk) 13:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott I already checked the Großes Sängerlexikon. She does not have an entry. She is mentioned briefly in the entry on her husband, the tenor Peter Hoffmann, on page 2115 (see https://www.google.com/books/edition/Großes_Sängerlexikon/dsfq_5dFeL0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Sasson ) but otherwise has no coverage. It is not significant coverage as the text is one sentence long and is about their marriages (twice married, covers second marriage in 1983) and separation in 1990. It has nothing to say about her at all other than that. 4meter4 (talk) 15:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Bayreuther Festspiele source which I have included as a reference in the article clearly identifies the 1999 edition of Sängerlexikon as a source. Not all editions are accessible online, especially for performers from the 1980s. Operissimo also draws on the same source.--Ipigott (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott It would be preferable to cite the GSL directly rather than use the festival website as a proxy. As her employer, the festival source is not independent, but the GSL would be. I'll assume in good faith that the festival website text is in that edition of the GSL, but normally articles built from theatre web pages that employ performers would not meet the standard of sourcing required at WP:SIGCOV because they lack sufficient independence. In my view, the article currently is cited too heavily to non-independent web materials (the majority of the article is verified to two non-independent websites) to meet GNG but as the Bayreuther Festspiele cited where it got its info I am willing to overlook it in this instance; particularly if we swap out the source for the print edition of the GSL. Best.4meter4 (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand. Please check historic biographies on the Bayreuther Festspiele and you will find that they quote the GSL word for word (Example: Hermin Esser), and additionally supply the exact information about the performances, which link to the colleagues, conductors and directors. It is actually the better reference. Additionally: we can see it. Is that clear enough? - --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt It would be fine as an external link, but as the festival is Sasson's employer it shouldn't be used as a cited reference because the website is too closely connected to the subject and lacks independence. More importantly, that website is a copy-paste of a copyrighted work. It would be better to cite the original print edition of the GSL and attribute the scholars who wrote the information for ethical reasons. It's an attribution (see Wikipedia:Attribution policy) and copyright issue Gerda. We shouldn't be crediting the Bayreuth Festival but the academic researchers and their publication.4meter4 (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no time to argue. Have you seen the Online Merker entry for her birthday, 2023, not an employer, also quoting the GLS, just an earlier version that we can't see? - The festival is not presenting some promotional stuff about their singers, but quote from the given source. That makes a difference for me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:11, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, 4meter4, for your understanding. I agree that it would be preferable to refer to the 1999 print version of GSL but this would no doubt require the assistance of a librarian or archivist to provide page numbers, etc., and would require considerable time and effort. I have always considered the Bayreuther Festspiele site as a reliable source, in particular for identifying the roles played by the various performers. In my experience, it has been widely used in the biographies of opera singers in order to identify their roles and performances. Until now I have not seen it dismissed as a mere "employer". Would you consider information from opera houses such as Covent Garden or the Met as employers too? If so, many of our sopranos' biographies may well not deserve inclusion in the English version of Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 16:18, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott This is complex issue. Theaters do pay their artists, and they promote them to generate ticket sales. They are indeed non-independent sources of information, and they have a financial conflict of interest. In my opinion its irresponsible (and lazy) article writing to use these materials anywhere but in an external link. Additionally, theater websites often re-publish artist bios written by the subject or by their paid talent management, meaning artist bio pages on theatre websites are also non-independent sources that can not be used to establish notability. Performance archives such as (https://archives.metopera.org/MetOperaSearch/) are WP:PRIMARY sources, and can be used per WP:VERIFIABILITY but they don't meet the standard of sourcing required at WP:SIGCOV which requires the use of WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY sources. In general, much of the content found in performance bios and archives can be verified elsewhere in better materials by digging up media reviews of opera performances with attributed authors in newspapers or specialty publications like Opera, Opera Wire, or Opera News, and these are the kind of independent sources needed to meet WP:GNG. Obviously, even better is having a source like the GSL or Grove Music Online, or an academic journal article or a book of some kind with significant coverage. If a singer hasn't had any independent media coverage of their performance, and the content is only verifiable to a theater website, they are indeed not notable. Most opera productions get reviewed so if one is having trouble finding reviews in newspaper archives it is highly probable should be deleted.4meter4 (talk) 16:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ipigott I don't think it would be necessary to worry about digging up the original 1999 SGL edition. I think we are all confident enough that Bayreuth is accurately representing the source that I think we could simply cite the book's entry without giving a specific page number. Anybody with a physical copy of the 1999 edition of the book would easily be able to locate that entry by citing the chapter "Sasson, Deborah". We can then move the Bayreuth bio to the external links so it is still visible to readers.4meter4 (talk) 17:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I brought back Bayreuth for the two reasons mentioned above: a) it is online, b) it has the performance dates and people, a convenience for readers interested in that James Levine conducted that Parsifal, and who was Parsifal in subsequent performances. I doubt that they would find it in the external links. Thanks to Grimes2 for finding more references. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:19, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda, I moved it back to the external links because the content being verified can be found directly in the text by Riemens and Kutsch, and its misleading/dishonest to essentially cite the same source twice but under different names. It infers there are two different sources; which is not true. Additionally, readers can easily access the source in the external links. There isn't an access issue here, and readers can find it easily.4meter4 (talk) 21:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Withdrawing per WP:HEY. The sourcing issues have largely been addressed. I think we can close this out as meeting WP:GNG. Good work Gerda and Ipigott.4meter4 (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.