Category Archives: Statistics

Statistical round up of 2014

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standingovationSo 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!

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Third blogiversary

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Fafner cat guards the magic Bikehelm

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!

Labour relations more popular than naked soprano

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photo-14Something rather extraordinary happened around here yesterday.  The state of the Met produced a completely unprecedented amount of traffic.  This year traffic has been running around 6000-8000 hits/month.  It’s been steadily growing since I started in August 2011 but not wildly.  Yesterday saw 5916 hits; most of them on the Met piece.  It was 17 months before I got that many hits in a month.  In less than 24 hours the piece became the most read thing I have posted eclipsing the previous “best seller” which was, oddly enough, a review of the 1992 ROH Salome with Maria Ewing.  This has been steadily garnering traffic for two and a half years mostly, it appears, from people who Google variants of “maria ewing nude”.  It appears that even a naked Lady Hall can’t compete with labour relations at the Met.

300

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There are now 300 reviews of Blu-ray and DVD recordings in the database.  (70 Blu-ray, the balance DVD)  As I did at 200 I took a look at how they break out.  I’ve pretty much exhausted the opera dvd resources of the Toronto public library system so recent and future reviews are more likely to be of things I’ve chosen to spend money on, bar the odd review copy from record companies.

languageThe first thing I looked at was language of performance.  It’s no surprise that Italian (96) and German (72) dominate the list.  French is  a strong third at 55.  English comes in at 40, almost all 20th and 21st century works.  Other (7) is quite interesting as it mostly reflects works in multiple languages such as Tan Dun’s Marco Polo.  “Other” is very much a modern category.  Continue reading →

A statistical round up of 2013

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jane_tixOperaramblings closed out 2013 with 70323 hits, up 47% from 2012.  Every month was busier than its equivalent in 2012 with a record high 7050 hits in October.  The busiest day was December 15th with 761 hits boosted by traffic related to Against the Grain’s Messiah.  I’ll be interested to see if this upward trend continues.  Personally, I think we are close to plateauing but at a level I would have regarded as completely unattainable when I started this little venture.

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Two years!

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janeforblogSo I’ve been here for two years now. This will be the 534th post. Readership has grown from 267 hits in September 2011 to between 4000 and 7000 per month in 2013 (there’s more traffic outside of the summer months).  It’s been a blast.

Thanks to everyone who has helped along the way including all the great people at Canadian Opera Company, Against the Grain Theatre and Opera Five among others.  And special thanks to fellow opera bloggers The Earworm, Regie or not Regie, Opera Obsession, Definitely the Opera and Third Floor Republic and to many, many others for helping create a real sense of community.

200 disks

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I’ve now reviewed 200 opera performances on DVD and Blu-Ray.  They range alphabetically from Adams to Zemlinsky and chronologically from Monteverdi to Reimann.  The oldest performance is a 1931 film of Die Dreigroschenoper and the latest a 2012 recording of Arabella.  Just for fun I did some quick stats on four parameters; century of composition, decade of performance, language of performance and place of performance.

centuryThe century of composition stats show, perhaps unsurprisingly, that my tastes don’t lie in opera’s temporal sweet spot, the 19th century.  My most popular century is the 20th with lots of Britten and Richard Strauss contributing a good chunk of the 73 disks.  The 19th does come in second at 58 but it’s only just ahead of the 18th at 51 with strong contributions from Mozart (of course), Handel and Rameau.  Continue reading →

Thank you!

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blue1117_2Today’s visitors made December 2012 the busiest month in terms of page views since I started this blog.  For the first time there have been over 5000 views in one month.  I’m quite staggered and rather humbled.  Whether you come from the US, Canada or the UK like most of my readers or are one of the rare visitors from New Caledonia or the Faroe Islands I hope you enjoy yourself, find what you need and come back soon.

Let’s make 2013 an even better year!

Search statistics

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I’m a bit of a fanatic about numbers so I tend to check the blog stats quite a bit. WordPress has pretty useful statistical tools really. Among other things one can track the search strings used to find one’s site. Here’s a screen cap showing that data from the beginning of this blog:

I’m completely at a loss to explain why “Calixto Bieito” and related terms should be represented thirty times more often than anything else.