Talk:Rosine Stoltz

Date of death

The date of her death was recently changed from 30 July 1903 to 28 July; Kutsch (2003) was added in the same edit and I wonder whether that was the source for the change. Every other Wikipedia has 30 July, Grove has 29 July (Mary Ann Smart. "Stoltz, Rosine" in Grove Music Online). Bord's biography has this footnote on page 206:

L'an mil neuf cent trois, le trente juillet à midi. Acte de décès de Victoire Noël, dite Rosina Stoltz, Princesse Godoy de Bassano, Comtesse de Ketschendorf; Veuve en premières Noces de Alphonse-Auguste Lescuyer; Veuve en secondes Noces de Godoy, prince de Bassano; née à Paris; y décédée en son domicile, avenue de l'Opéra, no 39, ce matin à quatre heures, âgée de quatre-vingt-huit ans et demi; fille de Père et de Mère décédés, dont les noms ne Nous sont pas connus; Dressé par Nous, Charles-Joseph-Eugène Lavanoux, Adjoint au Maire, Officier de l'Etat-civil du Deuxième Arrondissement de Paris, Officier d'Académie, après constatation, sur la déclaration de Ernest-Charles William de Ketschendorf, âgé de trente ans sans profession, demeurant à Londres (Iles Britanniques), Petit-fils de la Défunte et de Georges Charles, âgé de cinquante ans, Employé, demeurant rue Bonaparte no 7, non parent de la Défunte.

This looks a kind of death certificate by a city official to me, and it declares the date and time of death to be 4am on 30 July. According to that biography, she had a grandson vistit her on the 27th during a period of relative well being. A priest and doctor Petrovich visited on the 28th. She was a lot worse when the Marquis de Darraix visited her on the 29th. I suggest to restore the 30th as the day of her death in the article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:11, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Michael. I did not see Smart's article. I based my edit on three books I had on hand, the two I cited, plus Elizabeth Forbes article in New Grove Opera, all of which agreed and are considerably more recent than Bord. (As you know, the other Wikis are not acceptable as reliable sources.) My inclination is to rely on Smart's 2001 New Grove article. Since she cites Bord's book, she must be aware of the document quoted by Bord. Documents such as these can sometimes have errors. I saw that Smart published an article about Stoltz in the Cambridge Opera Journal in 1994, which may possibly have more details. She also cites a 1998 article in Italian by Appolonia, which may address this issue. Right now I would be OK with using any one of the three dates and mentioning the disagreement in the other sources in a footnote. I didn't see anything in her information on the singer in The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera that appeared to be relevant to this question. (Sometimes the evidence and arguments for preferring one date to another do not get published. That would be unfortunate.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:24, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to be sure: your change to July 28 is based on Randel in The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, Kutsch & Riemens in Großes Sängerlexikon, and Forbes in New Grove Opera? Do they cite other sources? E.g. Smart (2001) in Groves cites Bord and Giorgio Appolonia, "La 'maîtresse du Roi' overro vita ed avventure della cantatrice Rosine Stoltz", Stagione lirica autunnale 1998, ed. F. Bellotto (Bergamo, 1998), pp. 233–239, what seems to be a short article in a program booklet for the Fondazione Donizetti. How Smart concludes the 29th is the day she died is unclear to me, and you certainly didn't follow her when you changed the date. The much shorter Grove article by Forbes, who gives the 28th, quotes Bord, J.-G. Prod'homme, L'Opéra (1669–1925) (Paris, 1925), and Herbert Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First half of the 19th Century (New York, 1963). And of course everyone cites Berlioz' Mémoires but they were written in 1870. Frankly, I can't see how Forbes could conclude the 28th from the sources she provides.

I know of course that other Wikipedias are not reliable sources, but it makes one take notice if a date is changed only here, three years after the article was created. Also, I don't believe that being more recent makes a source necessarily more reliable. I was very impressed by Bord's day-by-day description of her last three days and I can't see how he could have gotten the 30th wrong, given M. Lavanoux' very officious sounding declaration. I'm going to ask the original creator of this article, Voceditenore, which sources she used at the time. Simply adding a footnote stating that 3 different dates are bandied about in the literature seems unsatisfactory to me. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:57, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Michael that newer isn't necessarily better. I based the date of death on Bord, given his narrative and the quote from her death certificate which was filed at noon on the 30th. Interestingly, Bord is cited as a source by several of the articles which then state the day as the 28th. They obviously never read their own source. The 30th as her death date is also confirmed by the announcement of her death and a lengthy article about her by Arthur Pougin in Le Ménestrel 2 August 1903, p. 244 [1]: "est morte jeudi dernier à Paris, à l'hôtel Bellevue, qu'elle habitait". On 2 August 1903, "jeudi dernier" ("last Thursday") = 30 July 1903. A lot of the "modern" references are compiled from other secondary sources which are often riddled with errors, esp. Kutsch and Riemens, which are then repeated from one reference book to the next, with the authors never having consulted the contemporary sources themselves. I've seen it plenty of times in Grove. If only Gallica had been online when they were writing their entries in the 1990s and early 2000s! According to Bord, she was found dead by her maid at 4 am on the 30th. It's possible that she died before midnight, or Smart may have simply inferred this. I strongly suggest we return to the 30th and mention the other two dates in the footnotes rather than the other way around. Voceditenore (talk) 14:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Side note on errors in Grove which I have remedied in other WP articles I've written. Example 1. This commentary by an Italian musicologist in Treccani re the Grove errors in their article on Elisabetta Manfredini-Guarmani. Example 2. This whopper, wrong on multiple fronts, re Gastaldon's 1890 opera Mala Pasqua! and his 1881 salon song "Musica proibita". - Voceditenore (talk) 15:24, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• I've gone ahead and changed it back to 30 July with an explanatory footnote here. - Voceditenore (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised you are so certain that Smart never read Bord. I would not make that assumption. After all, she has published a paper on Stoltz in a good journal. Since Smart changed the date given by Forbes (28), but did not use the date given by Bord (30), but instead gives the date as 29, I would be inclined to think she had a good reason for it. Also, almost all comprehensive sources have some errors. That says nothing about whether this is an error or not. Update: Like a lot of things, this will probably remain a bit of a mystery. I think the current version with the footnote is fine. Since Pougin in Le Ménestrel also reports Thursday [the 30th], it seems to be an OK choice for us. Thanks for all the input on it. Update2: One possibility of course is that an examiner of the body placed the time of death earlier than midnight after she was discovered at 4. Obviously there could be some documentation of this that came to light after Bord published his book and Smart is aware of it. (Pure speculation of course, which is all we can do at this point.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 23:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to Smart as never having read Bord or the Ménestrel obituary. I was referring to the authors who give the 28th date but cite Bord as a source which also includes the 2005 Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. I've read Smart's article in The Cambridge Opera Journal. It's very good. However, it doesn't address the issue at all, nor does it give a date of death apart from 1903. Smart had clearly read both Bord and the other contemporary obituaries. The focus of the article is on how Stoltz was mythologized (and demonized) in the press throughout her career and after her death, plus wider issues relating to gender bias in the theatrical writing of the time. I suspect that her date of the 29th was her interpretation of some contemporary press reports that Stoltz had died in the night of the 29th. But as you say, that's speculation. I think I'll email her and ask her about how she arrived at that date. Stay tuned.:). Voceditenore (talk) 06:00, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• I've found three more sources for the 30 July date, this time from the mainstream French press of the time. I won't add them to the article now, as this would be ref overkill, but I'll list them here as their contents may be useful for expanding it (note "hier"="yesterday").

• Le Figaro, 31 July 1903, "Mme Stoltz est morte, hier matin, à l'hôtel Bellevue, avenue de l'Opéra..." [2]

• Le Matin, 31 July 1903, "Hier est morte à l'hôtel Bellevue..." [3]

• L'Aurore, 31 July 1903, "...est morte hier matin, â l'hôtel Bellevue..." [4]

Voceditenore (talk) 12:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems pretty likely that the sources giving 28 July are incorrect. (I wonder how that date gained currency?) But Mary Ann Smart could still be in the running. Thanks for all the additional links! --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)