Continuing the discussion from Should the SPA [dialogue] be used for recordings with known performers?:
Do you mean the relationship credit, or the artist credit? I think it makes perfect sense to list the names in the vocal credit (soprano vocals [Character]: soprano), but wouldn’t want to see it as the artist credit (soprano vocals: Character).
yes, sorry, that’s actually what i meant, in the vocal type attribute space, not as an artist credit. it’s sort of a kludge, isn’t it.
going back to the post i was responding to, perhaps, in retrospect, artist credits as character names might not be appropriate.
It is, to some degree, but it would probably be pretty decent if it was more standardized. I’d love to get support for something like “Roles” for an opera or whatnot. I guess that’s kind of just instrumentation, but still. Something like “we expect a recording of this work to have a soprano (Character 1), a tenor (Character 2) and an orchestra/conductor”.
i have thought about a separate branch of the database devoted solely to such an end, mainly to serve opera, musical theatre, and i dunno maybe other genres I’ve not thought about.
the structure would be quite straighforward: eg, an opera/musical main work would have its principal roles listed, and what vocal registers (mainly opera/operetta, sometimes musicals even) those roles were written for, and who were the cast members & year for every known production of that opera/musical. this becomes then an internal reference source for recordings, to be used in whatever way that may be useful/implementable.
Audio dramas would heavily benefit from a proper method too:
Another problem is the lack localisation in vocal attribute credits:
If I were to enter character names in e.g. Japanese people who can’t read Japanese are going to be unhappy and if I were to enter transliterated names those who do know Japanese will be upset.
Maybe N-point relationships are the solution?
Personally I like the “roles” idea by nikki.