I reached the milestone of 400 DVD/Blu-ray reviews on June 20th 2016. The 500 mark came up last weekend. Let’s see how the stats have evolved.
Italian has increased its lead to 35% with German now on exactly 25%. English has dropped marginally to 12%, despite its prominence in contemporary works. I think multiple Salzburg Mozart cycles are playing a role here. Continue reading
Thinking about the analysis I did of my DVD reviewing habits, by individual work, just after Christmas, I wondered if a different pattern would emerge if I looked by composer instead. In a way it does show a different picture though some things remain the same.
Here’s the ranking based on the number of reviews of works by each composer with at least ten reviews (note this includes staged oratorios etc so may not be strictly comparable with Operabase). The Operabase ranking, based on performances in the 2015/26 season, follows in brackets.
I thought it might be interesting or amusing to compare the number of video recordings I’ve reviewed of various works with their Operabase popularity ranking (based on number of performances worldwide in the 2015/16 season). I’ve reviewed a total of 467 DVDs and Blu-rays and 15 works have been reviewed five times or more. That list includes five of Operabase’s top 10.
August 11th marked the five year anniversary of Opera Ramblings. Statistically we are now at 1350 posts and over 350,000 views. “Cheap Seats at the COC” and the review of the notorious Maria Ewing Salome DVD continue to be the most popular posts. Thanks for the ride!
It’s taken since May 16th 2014 to get from 300 to 400 recordings in the DVD review database. But now we are there with 84 Blu-rays and 316 DVDs. Surprisingly the Toronto Public Library is still a major source of material though one can see that the statistics are perhaps skewing a little more to my personal tastes. This despite someone at TPL having a taste for 19th century turkeys from French and Belgian regional houses. So, here’s the round up of the summary stats.
Italian is still the most common language with 30% of recordings but German has moved up relatively from 24% to 27%. Perhaps surprisingly the proportion of recordings in English has hardly changed at all at 13%. I would have thought that the proportion of contemporary works, many/most in English would have impacted the stats more.
The total number of hits on Operaramblings in 2015 was down slightly from 2014 at 89,091 versus 93,208 but if one excludes the piece I wrote on the labour problems at the Met in July 2014, which garnered over 9,000 hits in 48 hours, the 2014 total comes out at 83,665 so I think maybe a 7-8% underlying growth rate is to be seen.
I haven’t really done a full analysis of the COC’s recently released financials but what I have done suggests cause for cautious optimism. As anyone who reads this blog knows I have, for the last three years or so, pointed up the rather stark reality underlying the company’s relentlessly optimistic propaganda. To whit, a steady decline in seats sold, revenue and realisation (actual revenue dollars per seat sold). This year doesn’t look so bad.
Today is Operaramblings fourth blogiversary. In that time I’ve produced 1,089 posts which have been viewed a total of 270,084 times. Maria Ewing continues to prove oddly popular. The Salome DVD review has been read 3,622 times. Traffic seems to have stabilised. Having grown from 47,759 hits in 2012 to 93,209 hits last year I think it’s gone as far as it is going to; 7,000-8,000 hits/month.
So there you go. Thanks to everyone who has, and continues, to make it fun.
So here we are at the beginning of 2015 and it’s time to look back at the statistics for 2014. There were 93208 page views, up 32.6% on 2013. I think that’s not totally reflective of the underlying reality as a non-trivial chunk of the increase was caused by a short period in which The State of the Met got hit 9543 times. Still, each of the twelve months was busier than the equivalent in 2013, though often not by much. Analysis of various order derivatives of the underlying functionmight be an interesting exercise in non-parametric statistics but one I can’t really be bothered to do!
Fafner cat guards the magic Bikehelm
So, today marks the third anniversary of this blog. This will be the 824th post. There are over 300 DVD/Blu-ray reviews in the database. As I write there have been 1,981 comments and 182,996 views.
As I have said to many people I started this project with no ambitions. I certainly didn’t expect it to change my life but that’s what it has done. I have had the chance to experience music that I would likely never of heard of and tp learn about it from the people who create and perform it. More importantly I have met some really amazing people, some of whom have become firm friends. It’s been especially welcome as coincidentally my previously heavy involvement in rugby came to an end because of advancing age and eye problems almost exactly a year after starting this new venture.
so, to those of you who have made this journey so rewarding, my sincerest thanks and to those who will make it fun for the next few years, I look forward to meeting you!
operaramblings 