# Talk:Tale of the Moon Cuckoo

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tale of the Moon Cuckoo/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Geethree (talk · contribs) 17:42, 13 November 2023 (UTC)


### Successful good article nomination
I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of November 13, 2023, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass
Solid and coherent copy, understandable to someone unfamiliar with Mongolian history. There are extremely minor tweaks I would make (there is an over-use of commas, for example), but I will do that myself post-review.

2. Verifiable?: Pass
Well sourced. It is perhaps over-reliant on another third-party source (Atwood) and could be improved with more secondary sourcing. However, I think the sourcing is thorough and appropriate to pass the good article review.

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass
No comments. Concise and focused while providing helpful, wikilinked historical context.

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass
5. Stable? Pass
6. Images?: Pass
Great job. I enjoyed reading the article!
If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it Good article reassessed. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations.— Geethree (talk) 18:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Geethree I just fixed some basic fundamental problems. For one, this work is not an opera (which refers to a Western stage genre) but a Chinese opera which is a completely different art form. The work was linking to the Western art form and in the Western opera cats. This was an issue that should have been addressed in a proper GA review. I also note that the synopsis section lacks inline citations. At a minimum it should be cited to a publication of the work itself, or if based on the synopsis given by different source, include citations to that. A GA article should have citations throughout. 4meter4 (talk) 13:55, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

4meter4, please see MOS:PLOTSOURCE; the GA criteria explicitly exempt plot summary citations. Thanks for your correcting of the link, although upon further investigation I see it should go to Lhamo. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
If you want RS that define it as an opera, see the following, all mentioned in the sources section:
Ariunaa 2021: "About a century later, Noyon Khutagt Danzaravjaa wrote an opera based on this story in Mongolian."
Atwood 2004: "Heading: THE OPERA MOON CUCKOO", "he wrote the opera Saran Khökhögen-ü Namtar (Tale of the moon cuckoo)", "The opera alternated lively action and didactic passages"
Sardar 2016: "Ravjaa went to Alashan to hire actors for his opera, the Moon Cuckoo,"
Hope that helps. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:19, 17 November 2023 (UTC)


### Use of the word opera
Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) the most common name used for any topic is the one used in the title. Opera as a word in English is generally understood to mean the Western art form that originated in Europe. Generally when referring to Asian operas, we qualify that word in some way to prevent confusion with the commonly understood meaning of that word. I believe the use of opera in this article is confusing to most English language readers, and the word choice should reflect the most common name for both clarity of meaning and to prevent factual misunderstanding by the reader; particularly as MOS:FORCELINK indicates we shouldn't use links to clarify meaning for us.4meter4 (talk) 14:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

See my response above, 4meter4. The WP:COMMONNAME is "opera". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:26, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
This COMMONNAME and Naming conventions stuff is a bucketful of red herrings. I'm fine with opera, since it's commonly used by the sources. We also have plenty of room in the lead for more clarification, so we could use and explain lhamo and also mention the influence of Chinese opera. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
No it is not it is not the common name. If it were, the art form page would be housed at opera and not Lhamo. It isn't. The issue isn't sources but what English language speakers understand words to mean AirshipJungleman. The use of the word opera here is totally inappropriate because that word doesn't have that meaning to most people who speak English. This is not one I am willing to back down on. Hopefully we can get more editors to comment here to build a consensus.4meter4 (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
@Firefangledfeathers: lhamo is not mentioned in any source, so currently the lead contains explicit original research. The influence of Chinese opera is given the weighting it receives in the sources—i.e., equal to Tibetan or Buddhist influences. To place more prominence on it just because we have an article called Chinese opera is WP:UNDUE. @4meter4: If you wish to tell the authors of the reliable sources above that they don't know what their English means, you can tell them, but don't introduce your own original research. FYI, I cannot revert further because of 3RR, so I guess the original research will remain prominently in the lead. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
That's helpful to know on lhamo. Consider my comment amended to "we could mention and explain the influences of Tibetan dance (like Cham) Chinese opera". To be clear, I'm not advocating for anything based on the existence of an article called Chinese opera. I was pulling from the Elverskog source. I'm not as familiar with the overall body of sources as you are, so if you say UNDUE, I believe you. Still, since we're already mentioning Chinese and Tibetan "cultural influences", and since the lead has room for expansion, can we not get a bit more specific? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I see the problem, but don't see an easy solution. We could put the word "opera" in quotation marks, and/or give it a footnote saying that it's not an opera, but ... - whatever, sung scenic performance influenced by whatever, or place the explanation of the difference in the text. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Sure. How about:
The Tale of the Moon Cuckoo (Mongolian: Saran kökögen-ü namtar) is an opera by the Mongolian composer, writer, and incarnate lama Dulduityn Danzanravjaa, composed between 1831 and 1832 and first performed in 1833. It tells the story of a prince who is tricked into being a cuckoo by a manipulative companion, who then impersonates the prince and causes the decline of their kingdom.
Danzanravjaa based the opera's story on a 1737 Tibetan work of the same name, and combined theatrical elements of Tibetan and Chinese opera with Buddhist philosophical concepts. Performed by at least eighty-seven actors in a specially designed theatre, The Tale of the Moon Cuckoo lasted for a month and was interspersed with unrelated comedic or educational  pieces. It was performed for many years after Danzanravjaa's death in 1856 until the Communist purges in the 1930s.
I have delinked opera, to reflect what the sources say and to make sure FORCELINK isn't crossed. If you think this is good Firefangledfeathers, you could replace the current lead with it. I haven't gone into detail about the specific elements and concepts, because the lead is after all meant to be "a summary". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:00, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I think it's an improvement. Thanks AJ29! 4meter4, I know this doesn't address your issues, but are you ok with it as an incremental change? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:39, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
It think a clarifying statement to the article lead would be better. Something like, Tale of the Moon Cuckoo is an opera... It is written in the tradition of the Music of Mongolia and should not be confused with Western opera." That might solve some of the concerns of using/removing the word opera, while simultaneously preventing the work from being connected or confused with European opera.4meter4 (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I think it is vastly overstating this issue as WP:OR. You can't seriously be arguing that this work isn't a Lhamo, because it is. Nor can you be arguing that the work is an opera because there is a whole documented history of the first Western operas composed for performance in Asia that began c. 1940 (Western opera in Chinese; and China was the first to do this). The sources are using a word that is commonly understood to mean something else to most English language speakers, and the use of that word here frankly has a thorny Colonial past as non-Asian academics in musicology external to the culture borrowed these words from outside the culture to describe that culture. Best practice in musicology now is to remove superimposed Western terms and use traditional words from the culture itself as a decolonial ethic.4meter4 (talk) 15:00, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
It is the very essence of a colonialist Western viewpoint to assume that every subject must fit into a preconceived box, whether that be lhamo, Chinese opera, or opera. This work combines elements of Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian culture to produce something new. I am perfectly fine with creating an article titled Mongolian opera and linking it there, where it is a key work in an independent musical tradition. It should not and cannot nicely slot into anything else. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:12, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
That is a word again that has issues. Bilegiin Damdinsüren's 1975 opera Three Dramatic Characters is widely cited as the first "Mongolian opera" in English language sources. For example The New York Times makes this claim in their article on opera in Mongolia. Obviously they are meaning the first Western style opera in Mongolia, but this is where we get into issues about what people mean when they use the term "opera" or "Mongolian opera". I wouldn't support having an article with that title with the meaning you are proposing because those same words are often used in English sources to refer to western style operas created in Mongolia by Mongolians. There has got to be a better way to approach this. 4meter4 (talk) 15:27, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
And why wouldn't that be appropriate? Are you seriously trying to argue that Western-style operas produced in Mongolia by Mongolians for a Mongolian audience and loved and revered by generations of Mongolian people wouldn't be appropriate in an article entitled Mongolian opera, 4meter4? Uchirtai gurwan tolgoi (1942), the crowning achievement of Natsagdorj, the ballet Gankhuyag (1957), Chinggis Khan: The Rock Opera (2006)—all ineligible because Mongolian opera must remain this static, unchanging relic of centuries past? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
No I am saying that the term "Mongolian opera" is often used differently in the English language than what you are proposing. It is often used as a term that specifically refers to works created in the Western opera tradition in that nation as indicative of sources like the NYT article above. There is clear problem here per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). When we have sources defining the "first Mongolian opera" to Bilegiin Damdinsüren's Three Dramatic Characters (1975); that is a pretty clear sign that the term "Mongolian opera" is being used to refer to a specific art form (ie Western opera) and its history within Mongolia within the English language. We should construct articles around the way English speakers would understand them; or at least acknowledge the potential for confusion for English-language speakers through disambiguation or clarifying statements.4meter4 (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Also, there are several issues with the proposed works above under the tile "Mongolian opera". "Opera" is not a catch all term for stage works. For one, ballet is its own art form and is not opera (although sometimes ballets occur inside operas in the French tradition), and rock opera is not opera either but more closely connected to musical theatre. Rock musicals are rock operas that have been staged. The attempt to connect all those genres in the works listed above under the single title of "Mongolian opera" demonstrates a poor understanding of the separation between art forms, and would definitely be WP:OR/WP:SYNTH; particularly since many of those works are borrowing from Western art forms which have clearly defined separations in the Western theatre canon while acknowledging inter-connections and works that cross-genres. Also Uchirtai gurwan tolgoi has been adapted multiple times in different genres. It was originally staged as a dramatic play in 1934, and then adapted into a musical in 1942. It then was adapted into a different play, a melodrama, in 1950, before finally being adapted again into a western-style opera in 1975. Only the 1975 work would be considered "an opera". The others would fit in other stage genre categories.4meter4 (talk) 17:35, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Stage works of Mongolia then, 4meter4, or maybe Theatre of Mongolia? Fairly simple solution. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Sure. Either title would be fine.4meter4 (talk) 18:20, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 Excellent. Now, to return to this article, I have found a couple of sources that may interest you. 
The first is a recent paper by Kapišovská which, while acknowledging the lhamo basis of the Moon Cuckoo opera, states that it diverg[ed] from lhamo tradition. The paper consistently refers to the work as a "traditional Mongolian opera". As we now have a source which explicitly defines the work as a Mongolian opera, and as we still have no source which defines it as a lhamo, could you 4meter4 replace "lhamo or Tibetan opera" in the lead with "Mongolian opera"?
The other is the Timothy May book in the article—this, by a well-known expert on Mongolia, explicitly disagrees with the NYT by saying In 1942 the first Mongolian Western-style opera, Uchirtai Gurwan Tolgoi (Three Fateful Hills), was performed.; this correlates with Atwood. I would speculate that the NYT mistook the original performance date of 1932, a decade after Mongolia's independence, as sufficient to call Uchirtai gurwan tolgoi the "first Mongolian opera", not understanding the progression of genres you laid out above. It is clear that the NYT source is somewhat unreliable and that "Mongolian opera" should not be taken as only referring to Western-influenced works. 
~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:45, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with everything until your last sentence. In digging further there is an excellent article in Winston Wu, University of California, Berkeley (1979). "The Three Sorrowing Hills, Mongolia's First Opera: An Examination Of Literary And Musical Genre". In Henry G. Schwarz (ed.). Studies on Mongolia: Proceedings of the First North American Conference on Mongolian Studies. Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University Press.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) This traces the beginnings of "Mongolian opera" to a group of Mongolian composers studying opera in Russia, and ties Uchirtai Gurwan Tolgoi to  being heavily influenced by Mikhail Glinka and his operas. So while this pushes the first opera to an earlier date and a different work in alignment with Atwood, it doesn't draw a through line to stage works that comes out of lhamo. If I were writing the article on "Mongolian theatre" I would have a section on "lhamo" which would include works like Tale of the Moon Cuckoo that arose from those roots and keep them separate from a different section "Western opera in Mongolia" where one could begin with a discussion on those group of early Mongolian opera composers who studied opera in Russia and then created works in the style of Russian opera; bringing Western opera to Mongolia. It's very possible other works later branched out from this model to embrace other opera traditions in the West; it's not an area I am terribly familiar with. All of this to say, there are two different stage work heritages that are separate that could be called "Mongolian opera", and we need to be careful to not merge them in an original synthesis, but keep them separate, and to acknowledge that scholarly publications and newspapers using the term "Mongolian opera" may be referring to one or the other tradition but not both. Best.4meter4 (talk) 23:03, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
That seems fair 4meter4; I'll make sure to consult you when I get around to writing that article. Since we appear to have consensus that Mongolian operas belong to two different strands—"traditional style" and "Western influenced"—I've rewritten the lead to emphasise what you've brought up (difference from Western opera, connection to lhamo tradition, etc.) I hope that's fine. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Perfect. We are in an agreement.4meter4 (talk) 23:26, 17 November 2023 (UTC)