Template:Did you know nominations/Mary Jane Phillips-Matz

 The following is an archived discussion of Mary Jane Phillips-Matz's DYK nomination. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page; such as this archived nomination"s (talk) page, the nominated article's (talk) page, or the Did you know (talk) page. Unless there is consensus to re-open the archived discussion here. No further edits should be made to this page. See the talk page guidelines for (more) information.

The result was: promoted by BlueMoonset (talk) 20:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC).

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz

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• ... that in her book Verdi: A Biography, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz presented evidence suggesting that Giuseppina Strepponi gave birth to a daughter while she was Verdi's mistress but years before they married?

Created by Michael Bednarek (talk). Nominated by Voceditenore (talk) at 07:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

• ALT1 ... that Giuseppe Verdi's biographer, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, acquired her interest in opera from excursions to the Cincinnati Zoo?

This one is a bit of tease (see the first paragraph of the Biography section for the full story.) Voceditenore (talk) 15:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

interesting article on good sources! offline sources accepted AGF. Minor question to article: can you say "Phillips-Matz was born" - wasn't she born Phillips? - The hooks are both interesting, but I find the first very long and the other too harmless. There are almost too many possibilities, some:

ALT2 ... that Giuseppe Verdi's biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz titled her first book Opera Stars In The Sun: Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities?

ALT3 ... that according to the New York Times, Giuseppe Verdi's biography by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz "provides us with a more complicated portrait of the man than we have had so far"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

ALT4 ... that Giuseppe Verdi's biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz once characterized the modern opera business as "monstropera"? Voceditenore (talk) 07:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• I agree about what to call her. None of the solutions are ideal, but I've changed "Phillips-Matz was born..." to "Mary Jane Phillips was born...". I know the full name is conventionally only used in the lede, but in this case, I think it makes the sentence clearer to the reader. As for the hooks, I've added a fourth one. I think ALT2 is too boring, frankly. But I'd be happy with any of the other three. Voceditenore (talk) 07:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

PS A few months ago, I reviewed a DYK, and proposed and approved a slightly more interesting hook which appeared in the same sentence as the original hook. I was then told that as a reviewer, I could not approve any hooks that I had proposed and that it would need a second reviewer to review the new hook [1]. (That kind of stuff is one of the reasons why I avoid nominating and reviewing DYKs.) Anyhow, if that's the case, Gerda, maybe go for ALT1 or ALT4 since you didn't propose them? Voceditenore (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

ALT4 is approved ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea about DYK proprieties, but this is what struck me most when I first read her obituary: this writer, whose magnum opus was her Verdi biography, not only lived for many years in Italy and later spent many summers in Verdi's hometown, she lived in Manhattan near Verdi Square – that floored me. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Please word something about her living in Roncole and near Verdi Square, sourced of course, - if I do, I can't also approve it, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)