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Choir

A choir (also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.

The term choir is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the quire), whereas a chorus performs in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is not rigid. Choirs may sing without instruments, or accompanied by a piano, accordion, pipe organ, a small ensemble, or an orchestra.

A choir can be a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th century to 21st century oratorios and masses, 'chorus' or 'choir' implies that there is more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.

Structure
Choirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster/mistress or a choir director. Most often choirs consist of four sections intended to sing in four part harmony, but there is no limit to the number of possible parts as long as there is a singer available to sing the part: Thomas Tallis wrote a 40-part motet entitled Spem in alium, for eight choirs of five parts each; Krzysztof Penderecki's Stabat Mater is for three choirs of 16 voices each, a total of 48 parts. Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five, six, and eight.

Choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing (although the American Choral Directors Association discourages this usage in favor of "unaccompanied", since a cappella denotes singing "as in the chapel" and much unaccompanied music today is secular). Accompanying instruments vary widely, from only one instrument (a piano or pipe organ) to a full orchestra of 70 to 100 musicians; for rehearsals a piano or organ accompaniment is often used, even if a different instrumentation is planned for performance, or if the choir is rehearsing unaccompanied music. With the new prevalence of electronic devices, small groups can use these together with learning tracks for both group rehearsals and private practice.

Many choirs perform in one or many locations such as a church, opera house, school or village hall. In some cases choirs join up to become one "mass" choir that performs for a special concert. In this case they provide a series of songs or musical works to celebrate and provide entertainment to others.

Role of conductor
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as a choral concert, by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. The primary duties of the conductor or choirmaster/mistress are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats (meter), and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble.

In most choirs, the same individual acts as musical director (responsible for deciding the repertoire and engaging soloists and accompanists), chorus master/mistress (or répétiteur) (responsible for training and rehearsing the singers), and conductor (responsible for directing the performance). However, these roles may be divided, especially when the choir is combined with other forces, for example in opera.

The conductor or choral director typically stands on a raised platform and he or she may or may not use a baton; using a baton gives the conductor's gestures greater visibility, but many choral conductors prefer conducting with their hands for greater expressiveness, particularly when working with a smaller ensemble. In the 2010s, most conductors do not play an instrument when conducting, although in earlier periods of classical music history, leading an ensemble while playing an instrument was common. In Baroque music from the 1600s to the 1750s, conductors performing in the 2010s may lead an ensemble while playing a harpsichord or the violin (see Concertmaster). Conducting while playing a piano may also be done with musical theatre pit orchestras. Communication is typically non-verbal during a performance (this is strictly the case in art music, but in jazz big bands or large pop ensembles, there may be occasional spoken instructions). However, in rehearsals, the conductor will often give verbal instructions to the ensemble, since they generally also serve as an artistic director who crafts the ensemble's interpretation of the music.

Conductors act as guides to the choirs they conduct. They choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make certain adjustments (e.g., regarding tempo, repetitions of sections, assignment of vocal solos and so on), work out their interpretation, and relay their vision to the singers. Choral conductors may also have to conduct instrumental ensembles such as orchestras if the choir is singing a piece for choir and orchestra. They may also attend to organizational matters, such as scheduling rehearsals, planning a concert season, hearing auditions, and promoting their ensemble in the media.

In worship services
Historically, the sung repertoire divides into sacred or religious music and secular music. While much religious music has been written with concert performance in mind, its origin lies in its role within the context of liturgy.

Accompaniment
Most Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, some American Protestant groups, and traditional Jewish synagogues do not accompany their songs with musical instruments. In churches of the Western Rite the accompanying instrument is usually the organ, although in colonial America, the Moravian Church used groups of strings and winds. Many churches which use a contemporary worship format use a small amplified band to accompany the singing, and Roman Catholic Churches may use, at their discretion, additional orchestral accompaniment.

Liturgical function
In addition to leading of singing in which the congregation participates, such as hymns and service music, some church choirs sing full liturgies, including propers (introit, gradual, communion antiphons appropriate for the different times of the liturgical year). Chief among these are the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches; far more common however is the performance of anthems or motets at designated times in the service.

Types
One of the main classifications of choirs is by gender and age since these factors have traditionally been thought to affect how a choir sounds and what music it performs. The types are listed here in approximate descending order of prevalence at the professional and advanced amateur or semi-professional levels.

 * Adult mixed choir (with male and female voices) is perhaps the most common and dominant type, usually consisting of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices, often abbreviated as SATB. Often one or more voices is divided into two, e.g., SSAATTBB, where each voice is divided into two parts, and SATBSATB, where the choir is divided into two semi-independent four-part choirs. Occasionally baritone voice is also used (e.g., SATBarB), often sung by the higher basses. In smaller choirs with fewer men, SAB, or soprano, alto, and baritone arrangements allow the few men to share the role of both the tenor and bass in a single part and altos may also sing the tenor part.
 * Male choir (or choir of men & boys) with the same SATB voicing as a mixed choir, but with boys singing the upper part (often called trebles or boy sopranos) and men singing alto (in falsetto), also known as countertenors. This format was until recently typical of the British cathedral choir (e.g. King's College, St Paul's, Westminster Abbey). However, all cathedrals now accept women and girls and by 2019 female choristers outnumbered males in English cathedral choirs.
 * Men's chorus (Male voice choir, Männerchor), a choir of adult men, low voices only, usually consisting of two tenors, baritone, and bass, often abbreviated as TTBB (or ATBB if the upper part sings falsetto in alto range). ATBB may be seen in some barbershop quartet music.
 * Boys' choir, a choir of boys, typically singing SSA or SSAA, sometimes including a cambiata/tenor part for boys/young men whose voices are changing and a baritone part for boys/young men whose voices have changed.
 * Women's choir, a choir of adult women, high voices only, usually consisting of soprano and alto voices, two parts in each, often abbreviated as SSAA, or as soprano I, soprano II, and alto, abbreviated SSA. If all singers are young, the term "girls' choir" is used instead.
 * Children's mixed choir (with male and female voices), often two-part SA or three-part SSA, sometimes more voices.

The all-female and mixed children's choirs tend to be professionally less prevalent than the high voiced boys' choirs, the lower voiced men's choruses, or the full SATB choirs. This is due to some extent to lack of scholarships and other types of funding, and a lack of professional opportunities for women such as that of being lay clerks or musical directors.

Choirs are also categorized by the institutions in which they operate:

 * Church (including cathedral) choirs
 * Chorale (Kantorei), dedicated to mostly sacred Christian music
 * Collegiate and university choir
 * Community choir (of children or adults)
 * Professional choir, either independent (e.g. Anúna, the Sixteen, the Archipelago Singers ) or state-supported (e.g., BBC Singers, Chamber Choir Ireland, Canadian Chamber Choir, Swedish Radio Choir, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Latvian Radio Choir)
 * School choirs
 * Signing choir using sign language rather than voices
 * Integrated signing and singing choir, using both sign language and voices and led by both a signductor and a musical director
 * Cambiata choirs, for adolescent boys whose voices are changing.
 * Virtual choirs, for members who do not meet physically, some having originated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some choirs are categorized by the type of music they perform, such as
 * Bach choir
 * Barbershop music group
 * Gospel choir
 * Show choir, in which the members sing and dance, often in performances somewhat like musicals
 * Symphonic choir
 * Vocal jazz choir

In schools
In the United States, middle schools and high schools often offer choir as a class or activity. Some choirs participate in competitions. One kind of choir popular in high schools is show choir. During middle school and high school students' voices are changing. Although girls experience voice change, it is much more significant in boys. A lot of literature in music education has been focused on how male voice change works and how to help adolescent male singers. Research done by John Cooksey categorizes male voice change into five stages, and most middle school boys are in the early stages of change. The vocal range of male and female students may be limited while their voice is changing, and choir teachers must be able to adapt, which can be a challenge to teaching this age range.

Nationally, male students are enrolled in choir at much lower numbers than their female students. The music education field has had a longtime interest in the "missing males" in music programs. Speculation as to why there are not as many boys in choir, and possible solutions vary widely. One researcher found that boys who enjoy choir in middle school may not always go on to high school choir because it simply does not fit into their schedules. Some research speculates that one reason that boys' participation in choir is so low is because the U.S. does not encourage male singers. Often, schools will have a women's choir, which helps the balance issues mixed choirs face by taking on extra female singers. However, without a men's choir also, this can make the problem worse by not giving boys as many opportunities to sing as girls. Other researchers have noted that having an ensemble, or a workshop dedicated to male singers, can help with their confidence and singing abilities. British cathedral choirs are usually made from pupils enrolled in schools.

Arrangements on stage
There are various schools of thought regarding how the various sections should be arranged on stage. It is the conductor's decision on where the different voice types are placed. In symphonic choirs it is common (though by no means universal) to order the choir behind the orchestra from highest to lowest voices from left to right, corresponding to the typical string layout. In a cappella or piano-accompanied situations it is not unusual for the men to be in the back and the women in front; some conductors prefer to place the basses behind the sopranos, arguing that the outer voices need to tune to each other.

More experienced choirs may sing with the voices all mixed. Sometimes singers of the same voice are grouped in pairs or threes. Proponents of this method argue that it makes it easier for each individual singer to hear and tune to the other parts, but it requires more independence from each singer. Opponents argue that this method loses the spatial separation of individual voice lines, an otherwise valuable feature for the audience, and that it eliminates sectional resonance, which lessens the effective volume of the chorus. For music with double (or multiple) choirs, usually the members of each choir are together, sometimes significantly separated, especially in performances of 16th-century music (such as works in the Venetian polychoral style). Some composers actually specify that choirs should be separated, such as in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. Some composers use separated choirs to create "antiphonal" effects, in which one choir seems to "answer" the other choir in a musical dialogue.

Consideration is also given to the spacing of the singers. Studies have found that not only the actual formation, but the amount of space (both laterally and circumambiently) affects the perception of sound by choristers and auditors.

Antiquity

The origins of choral music are found in traditional music, as singing in big groups is extremely widely spread in traditional cultures (both singing in one part, or in unison, like in Ancient Greece, as well as singing in parts, or in harmony, like in contemporary European choral music).

The oldest unambiguously choral repertory that survives is that of ancient Greece, of which the 2nd century BC Delphic hymns and the 2nd century AD. hymns of Mesomedes are the most complete. The original Greek chorus sang its part in Greek drama, and fragments of works by Euripides (Orestes) and Sophocles (Ajax) are known from papyri. The Seikilos epitaph (2c BC) is a complete song (although possibly for solo voice). One of the latest examples, Oxyrhynchus hymn (3c) is also of interest as the earliest Christian music.

Of the Roman drama's music a single line of Terence surfaced in the 18th century. However, musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen comments that it is no longer believed to be authentic.

Medieval music

The earliest notated music of western Europe is Gregorian chant, along with a few other types of chant which were later subsumed (or sometimes suppressed) by the Catholic Church. This tradition of unison choir singing lasted from sometime between the times of St. Ambrose (4th century) and Gregory the Great (6th century) up to the present. During the later Middle Ages, a new type of singing involving multiple melodic parts, called organum, became predominant for certain functions, but initially this polyphony was only sung by soloists. Further developments of this technique included clausulae, conductus and the motet (most notably the isorhythmic motet), which, unlike the Renaissance motet, describes a composition with different texts sung simultaneously in different voices. The first evidence of polyphony with more than one singer per part comes in the Old Hall Manuscript (1420, though containing music from the late 14th century), in which there are apparent divisi, one part dividing into two simultaneously sounding notes.

Renaissance music

During the Renaissance, sacred choral music was the principal type of formally notated music in Western Europe. Throughout the era, hundreds of masses and motets (as well as various other forms) were composed for a cappella choir, though there is some dispute over the role of instruments during certain periods and in certain areas. Some of the better-known composers of this time include Guillaume Dufay, Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, John Dunstable, and William Byrd; the glories of Renaissance polyphony were choral, sung by choirs of great skill and distinction all over Europe. Choral music from this period continues to be popular with many choirs throughout the world today.

The madrigal, a partsong conceived for amateurs to sing in a chamber setting, originated at this period. Although madrigals were initially dramatic settings of unrequited-love poetry or mythological stories in Italy, they were imported into England and merged with the more dancelike balletto, celebrating carefree songs of the seasons, or eating and drinking. To most English speakers, the word madrigal now refers to the latter, rather than to madrigals proper, which refers to a poetic form of lines consisting of seven and eleven syllables each.

The interaction of sung voices in Renaissance polyphony influenced Western music for centuries. Composers are routinely trained in the "Palestrina style" to this day, especially as codified by the 18th century music theorist Johann Joseph Fux. Composers of the early 20th century also wrote in Renaissance-inspired styles. Herbert Howells wrote a Mass in the Dorian mode entirely in strict Renaissance style, and Ralph Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor is an extension of this style. Anton Webern wrote his dissertation on the Choralis Constantinus of Heinrich Isaac and the contrapuntal techniques of his serial music may be informed by this study.

Baroque music
The Baroque period in music is associated with the development around 1600 of the figured bass and the basso continuo system. The figured bass part was performed by the basso continuo group, which at minimum included a chord-playing instrument (e.g., pipe organ, harpsichord, lute) and a bass instrument (e.g., violone). Baroque vocal music explored dramatic implications in the realm of solo vocal music such as the monodies of the Florentine Camerata and the development of early opera. This innovation was in fact an extension of established practice of accompanying choral music at the organ, either from a skeletal reduced score (from which otherwise lost pieces can sometimes be reconstructed) or from a basso seguente, a part on a single staff containing the lowest sounding part (the bass part).

A new genre was the vocal concertato, combining voices and instruments; its origins may be sought in the polychoral music of the Venetian school. Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) brought it to perfection with his Vespers and his Eighth Book of Madrigals, which call for great virtuosity on the part of singers and instruments alike. (His Fifth Book includes a basso continuo "for harpsichord or lute".) His pupil Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) (who had earlier studied with Giovanni Gabrieli) introduced the new style to Germany. Alongside the new music of the seconda pratica, contrapuntal motets in the stile antico or old style continued to be written well into the 19th century. Choirs at this time were usually quite small and that singers could be classified as suited to church or to chamber singing. Monteverdi, himself a singer, is documented as taking part in performances of his Magnificat with one voice per part.

Independent instrumental accompaniment opened up new possibilities for choral music. Verse anthems alternated accompanied solos with choral sections; the best-known composers of this genre were Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell. Grands motets (such as those of Lully and Delalande) separated these sections into separate movements. Oratorios (of which Giacomo Carissimi was a pioneer) extended this concept into concert-length works, usually based on Biblical or moral stories.

A pinnacle of baroque choral music, (particularly oratorio), may be found in George Frideric Handel's works, notably Messiah and Israel in Egypt. While the modern chorus of hundreds had to await the growth of Choral Societies and his centennial commemoration concert, we find Handel already using a variety of performing forces, from the soloists of the Chandos Anthems to larger groups (whose proportions are still quite different from modern orchestra choruses):

"Yesterday [Oct. 6] there was a Rehearsal of the Coronation Anthem in Westminster-Abby, set to musick by the famous Mr Hendall: there being 40 voices, and about 160 violins, Trumpets, Hautboys, Kettle-Drums and Bass' proportionable..!"

- Norwich Gazette, October 14, 1727

Lutheran composers wrote instrumentally accompanied cantatas, often based on chorale tunes. Substantial late 17th-century sacred choral works in the emerging German tradition exist (the cantatas of Dietrich Buxtehude being a prime example), though the Lutheran church cantata did not assume its more codified, recognizable form until the early 18th century. Georg Philipp Telemann (based in Frankfurt) wrote over 1000 cantatas, many of which were engraved and published (e.g. his Harmonische Gottesdienst) and Christoph Graupner (based in Darmstadt) over 1400. The cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) are perhaps the most recognizable (and often-performed) contribution to this repertoire: his obituary mentions five complete cycles of his cantatas, of which three, comprising some 200 works, are known today, in addition to motets. Bach himself rarely used the term cantata. Motet refers to his church music without orchestra accompaniment, but instruments playing colla parte with the voices. His works with accompaniment consists of his Passions, Masses, the Magnificat and the cantatas.

A point of hot controversy today is the so-called "Rifkin hypothesis," which re-examines the famous "Entwurff" Bach's 1730 memo to the Leipzig City Council (A Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well Appointed Church Music) calling for at least 12 singers. In light of Bach's responsibility to provide music to four churches and be able to perform double choir compositions with a substitute for each voice, Joshua Rifkin concludes that Bach's music was normally written with one voice per part in mind. A few sets of original performing parts include ripieni who reinforce rather than slavishly double the vocal quartet.

Classical and Romantic music
Composers of the late 18th century became fascinated with the new possibilities of the symphony and other instrumental music, and generally neglected choral music. Mozart's mostly sacred choral works stand out as some of his greatest (such as the "Great" Mass in C minor and Requiem in D minor, the latter of which is highly regarded). Haydn became more interested in choral music near the end of his life following his visits to England in the 1790s, when he heard various Handel oratorios performed by large forces; he wrote a series of masses beginning in 1797 and his two great oratorios The Creation and The Seasons. Beethoven wrote only two masses, both intended for liturgical use, although his Missa solemnis is probably suitable only for the grandest ceremonies due to its length, difficulty and large-scale scoring. He also pioneered the use of chorus as part of symphonic texture with his Ninth Symphony and Choral Fantasia.

In the 19th century, sacred music escaped from the church and leaped onto the concert stage, with large sacred works unsuitable for church use, such as Berlioz's Te Deum and Requiem, and Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem. Rossini's Stabat mater, Schubert's masses, and Verdi's Requiem also exploited the grandeur offered by instrumental accompaniment. Oratorios also continued to be written, clearly influenced by Handel's models. Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ and Mendelssohn's Elijah and St Paul are in the category. Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms also wrote secular cantatas, the best known of which are Brahms's Schicksalslied and Nänie.

A few composers developed a cappella music, especially Bruckner, whose masses and motets startlingly juxtapose Renaissance counterpoint with chromatic harmony. Mendelssohn and Brahms also wrote significant a cappella motets. The amateur chorus (beginning chiefly as a social outlet) began to receive serious consideration as a compositional venue for the part-songs of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and others. These 'singing clubs' were often for women or men separately, and the music was typically in four-part (hence the name "part-song") and either a cappella or with simple instrumentation. At the same time, the Cecilian movement attempted a restoration of the pure Renaissance style in Catholic churches.

20th and 21st centuries
In the United States, development of mixed choirs was pioneered by groups such as The St. Olaf Choir and Westminster Choir College. These groups were characterized by arrangements of hymns and other sacred works of christian nature which helped define the choral sound of the United States for most of the 20th century. Secular choral music in the United States was popularized by groups such as the Dale Warland Singers throughout the late 20th century.

The Big Choral Census online survey was established to find out how many choirs there were in the UK, of what type, with how many members, singing what type of music and with what sort of funding. Results estimated that there were some 40,000 choral groups operating in the UK and over 2 million people singing regularly in a choir. Over 30 percent of the groups listed described themselves a community choirs, half of the choirs listed sing contemporary music although singing classical music is still popular. Most choirs are self funding. It is thought that the increase in popularity of singing together in groups has been fed to some extent in the UK by TV progammes such as Gareth Malone's 'The Choir'. In 2017, the Purwa Caraka Music Studio Choir of Indonesia began the trend when they covered children's songs in a choral arrangement for the film Surat Kecil untuk Tuhan.

Apart from their roles in liturgy and entertainment, choirs and choruses may also have social-service functions, including for mental health treatment or as therapy for homeless and disadvantaged people, like the Choir of Hard Knocks or for special groups such as Military Wives.

title: Choir


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Talk:Richard J. Daley

Old talk
The stuff towards the end is still really bothersome. RJD's reputation has not risen "considerably" after his death... he is still remembered by many in Chicago as a racist, autocratic thug. --Anon. --- When was he elected mayor and how long did he stay in office? --rmhermen

This article is pretty good, if not definitive. I'll be adding to it from time to time. I covered duh mare regularly for a couple of years in the 60s during my stint in Chicago journalism. Ortolan88

Glad you liked it. I wasn't going for definitive, just basic information. Look forward to seeing your improvements and expansions. shsilver

--

This article devolves into POV towards the end. It's kind of a mess, if anyone wants to tackle it.

Moncrief

 * Yes, i agree. Statments such as Yes, Daley presided over a wasteful machine, but few cities truly are governed efficiently. In reality, cities are jungles of interest groups, ignorance, and chronic poverty, need to be fixed. Green  Mountain 21:42, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

--

I was the person who wrote most of the stuff about the virtues of a machine and the difficulties in governing a city efficiently. I admit I got carried away there. If anyone wants sections which I deleted to be restored please do so.

Machines have been reassessed in the last twenty-five years though. I was trying to point out why machines are seen as less undesireable than the feasible alternatives. New York City and Philadelphia got reform, but they never got good government.

User:Dinopup

Good article. However I believe there were two other aldermen that opposed the Daley machine. Bill Singer of the 44th (and later 43rd) ward on the Northside and Dick Simpson also of the 44th.-- acsmith

I was there
I don't know who took the following out of the article:

 * Any Democratic vote fraud in Cook County was easily matched statewide by Republican practices downstate, which included voting by telephone, and bulk voting by political leaders.

I was there, I was covering Mayor Daley as a reporter, I was covering elections, these things actually happened under the leadership of the crooked Republican Paul Powell, whose political approach was summed up in his constant sponsorship of "fetcher" bills, threats to regulate some industry or other which would then bring in bribes to kill the legislation. His motto was "I smell the meat a'cooking!" There were many news stories about Republican fraud, some written by me. I intend to return this information, in some form, to the article, but I'll hold off to hear objections. This was the balance in Illinois politics in the 1960s and it is important for the information to be there because of all the uproar about Daley stealing the Presidential election for Kennedy. They all stole elections. Ortolan88 05:15, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I note that "I was there" is likely to garner a diversion to the "No original research" policy., WP:NOR. You gotta back it up with some substantial documentation, especially when the topic is political. -- Pinktulip 00:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

 * For what it's worth, Paul Powell was actually a Democrat, though not a Daley Democrat. See Paul_Powell_(politician).  JMRyan (talk) 03:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I took the statement out because it was not germane to Chicago municipal elections and was POV. The Daley cult of personality is, unfortunately, alive and well in modern times, and this sort of "well, THEY were doing it too" stuff does not in any way validate the corrupt, undemocratic behavior of Daley and the Cook County Democrats. Yes, the downstate Republicans were bastards and a half. Yeah, they all did it. That excuses nothing.

I in no way doubt your experience with Powell and others. However, that information belongs in a wiki about statewide corruption. It can be argued, of course, that Daley WAS in effect a de facto statewide office holder... cf his alleged meddling with the 1960 presidential election, dismissal of Adlai Stevenson, and so on. By the time Daley had consolidated his power as mayor, though, the Republicans in Chicago were decimated and have not recovered as a credible political force (in the city, mind you... the statewide Republicans have also hosed their chances at political office in the foreseeable future, but I'd argue that it's their own damn fault, and is certainly a much more recent occurrence), the idiocy with the "Fast Eddie" Vrytolak party switch in the 80's aside.

So my argument against talking about Republican corruption during the Daley Sr. Administration (as it it currently phrased! see below) boils down to a single point. Downstate Republican corruption during the Daley administration is no excuse for upstate Democratic corruption. Insinuating that it does violates NPOV, as they are two different issues. I'd be happy to see a factual, NPOV article that talks about what sons of bitches the downstate GOPers were (and are), but it does not belong in an article about a Chicago mayor.

Mind you, I'm not against putting it back in, in a way that is focused to municipal Chicago or a statewide beef that Daley had direct involvement in. Or, we can both talk about corruption in state and city elections, since it was the culture of much of 20th century Chicago and Illinois politics, but it will be matched with info about abuses by the Democratic machine. Like you say, everyone was doing it.

Maybe I should start a wiki account. Till then, Anon.

Can someone explain to me how the following three passages fit together, please?

"Daley was the prototypical "machine" politician, and his Chicago Democratic Machine, based on control of thousands of patronage positions, has been considered by some to have been instrumental in helping to elect John F. Kennedy in 1960. A limited recount at the time showed that while Daley's machine stole massive numbers of votes from state's attorney Benjamin Adamowski, whom Daley was determined to defeat, there were only a small number of questionable votes for Kennedy. This is one reason why Republican candidate Richard Nixon chose not to pursue a recount; also it was alleged that downstate Illinois Republican organizers had stolen votes for Nixon."

"It was often alleged that his administration used questionable tactics to acquire votes, with the ironic phrase "vote early and vote often" frequently used to describe to his method of delivering votes. Indeed, in 1960, Daley "delivered" Chicago to John F. Kennedy by stuffing ballot boxes; in several cases, some Chicago precincts had more ballots cast than eligible voters. Daley's conduct in this regard gave Chicago a reputation for political skulduggery that it held for years after Daley's passing."

"A few wards were tied to the local mafia or crime syndicate, but Daley's own ward was clean and his personal honesty was never questioned successfully."

As far as I can see, each of these contradicts the other two, but I may well be misunderstanding. If I am, I'd suggest clarifying them; if I'm not then at least some of the article needs to be rewritten. Donald Ian Rankin 22:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I was there and titles after death
I marked as needing citation the section claiming he was called Papa Bear, or Boss Daley. No long time Chicagoan would ever call Daley Papa Bear and DEFINITELY NOT Boss Daley. Papa Bear was a cute name used for someone at the Chicago Bears by people who were afraid of him or trying to smooch his buttocks. "Boss" (not "The Boss") was the title of Mike Royko's book about Daley and the only time Daley was called Boss was in reference to that book. Boss was waaaaaayyyyy too meek a title for Daley. If anyone had referred to Daley as Boss, the others in the conversation would have corrected the reference to King, Emperor, kingmaker, or he who crowned American presidents, and laughed at Boss. Anyone who would ever have called Daley Boss Daley would have been considered a fugitive from a Dukes of Hazard episode and sent back to Wilson and Broadway. I was 6 when Daley took office and 27 when he died. Police, Fire, and any working man called him Senior, or The Old Man (when mixing him into a conversation about Richard M Daley), or Richard J.  Tgdf (talk) 02:10, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

A thought.
A substantial portion of this entire biographical article is devoted specifically to acts of chicanery on the part of R.J. or people working for him. Can an interested party balance it somewhat? I read this bio and am left thinking that most of what the man contributed during his long political career are various methods on how to stay in office. He *was*, by reputation, a bit of a crook and heavy-handed, but this article glosses over substantial portions of even just his career in politics as a whole, not to mention his family life or other relevant details. I tagged a few items that definitely need attention, and leave it to others who have a greater interest in American politics.

→  P . Mac Uidhir  (t)  (c) - "Proud to be Chicago-born and Chicago-bred" 05:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Pádraic_MacUidhir: I agree with your assessment; this article has large holes in Daley's life story. Other parts of the article are anecdotal; while these stories are interesting, some of them seem to drift across the POV line and/or lack verifiability. There must surely exist a wealth of factual information on this interesting and important politician that can be tapped to make a better article. — JonRoma 09:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Structure
I added some structure to the article so that "machine" verbiage is segreated off on its own. That should allow editors and readers to focus on it or ignore it as they wish. -- Pinktulip 01:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

De Facto Segregation
I recently added on to a comment that the reason Chicago did not end up like Detroit and Cleveland was because Mayor Daley encouraged middle-class Whites to remain in the city by preserving de facto segregation. Less than five minutes later, the statement was edited out. For whatever your opinions may be on the issue, the fact is Mayor Daley learned a few lessions from the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, and knew that if integration came about, an even greater race riot would've occured, resulting in a war zone not unlike Newark and Detroit. With that said, if we are to condemn de facto segregation, we should condemn those who live in such neighborhoods. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.49.80.58 (talk • contribs).

 * We shouldn't be condemning anyone here; Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia and not a platform for expressing a point of view. Perhaps the person who reverted your comment may care to comment him/herself, but a plausible reason your comment was edited out is that it represented speculation, rather than being a documented fact or a quote from published material on Daley. I have no doubt that some historian who's written a biographical work on the Daley era might advance the very assessment you did. In this event a quote from such works would be entirely appropriate for inclusion in the article, as would quotes from material advancing contrary views on the Daley era. The idea is to present the various perspectives without espousing any of them.

 * Also, please sign your comments to this and other talk pages by typing  ~  at the end of your posts. Thanks. — JonRoma 05:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

God Bless the talk page where you can sometimes learn more than on the main page. (I didn't write De Facto Segregation)Tgdf (talk) 02:12, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Gestapo quote
The supposed lipreading is both POV and and urban legend. At a press conference Daley explicitly denied making any obscene comments, according to Chicago Sun-Times, September 10, 1968, page 7. So that's solid evidence that require better evidence to refute it. Now ask what proof there is to the contary--the source used -- a popular column written over 30 years later that makes no pretense to scholarship. Encyclopedias need proof, not myths invented as POV. [my proof is this: "Daley vehemently denied using such a slur during the exchange. See the Chicago Sun-Times, September 10, 1968, 7." from Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention by Frank Kusch - (Praeger, 2004) page 184. Rjensen 18:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but RJD's denial is not irrefutable proof that he did not utter the phrase attributed to him. The incident was not only captured on film (video/TV/etc, albeit without sound), but has been confirmed by people in the audience who heard him.  It has been recounted in almost every biography of RJD, including Mike Royko's "Boss" and Taylor/Cohen's "American Pharaoh".  Daley's specific denial should be mentioned and referenced, but that does not change the fact that:
 * He said it.
 * He said it on national television, without sound, but the content is plainly obvious.
 * Other audience members heard him say it.
 * Finally, whether true or not, it is a sufficiently notable charge to be discussed, and rebutted if need be, in an encyclopedic entry on RJD.

 * Cheers, Skinwalker 19:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Agreed with Skinwalker. It's appropriate to include the incident and the quote, given that there is ample support that it happended with the obscenity and antisemitic wording as described. As I have it currently worded, it is presented as "some have claimed to have observed Daley shouting...", which provides more than enough wiggle room. Daley's denial should be noted, but his statemnt is no less self-serving and POV than any other source, regardless of Daley's contempraneous vehemence. I will say that we should find a primary source from 1968 to document the quote (or at least that some obscene statement was uttered). While I can't find access to the Chicago Sun-Times (insert a link if you have one), the fact that he was denying something just days after he did or did not say indicates that there were those who believed at the time that he said it.

 * The only questions we have now is how to word the issue and provide sources to support / rebut it. Whether or not to include the subject is abundantly clear in the affirmative. Alansohn 19:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * the only "source" is rumor. Everyone saw Daley shout at Ribicoff. I did read the NY Times account and followup and it never mentions obscenity, Note that the legend depends on lipreaders --but ZERO lipreaders have come forward to translate for us. The legend says that "many" lipreaders read it, but no one has every found a single one. Isn't that odd?  There is film-- there are lipreaders today who can see the film. But they all remain silent. With an actual denial it's time for the proponents to come up with a primary source, either from 1968 or someone recently who can read lips. Rjensen 20:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
 * As for primary sources; Nicholas Von Hoffman reported in Washington POST Sept 10, 1968 page A1 that when a reporter asked Daley is he used "MotherF..." Daley said no. "Don't say that. I never use that kind of language in my life." An alderman who has been sitting next to Daley said he did not use the F word, and never used it. Likewise the NY Times Sept 10 1968 reported Daley said he never used language like that. In fact no reporter ever said he heard Daley used the F-word at any time. Rjensen 20:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * No, there are multiple primary sources that heard Daley. Please look up Boss, by Mike Royko, and American Pharaoh, by Taylor and Cohen.  These biographies discuss the incident at length.  The incident needs to be in the article, as it reflects upon Daley's attitude towards minorities and those who dared to question his policies.  We can and should cite and discuss Daley's denial in the article, but this bit about finding a lipreading source is a bit silly and obstructive.  As someone noted above, the Daley cult of personality is alive and well, and whitewashing this incident would be typical of the revisionist history that his son and other henchmen have tried to put forward.  We absolutely should not take RJD's denial as the gospel truth, as to do so would violate POV.  Cheers, Skinwalker 23:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * In Boss (p 189) Royko says that an underground Washington newspaper said that a lip reader had determined what Daley said. Royko then cites three witnesses that he did not say any such thing, and one who said Daley's lips "definitely formed the word 'fuck.' Royko quotes a Jewish delegate who said that other delegates were shouting antisemitic remarks but he did not hear Daley do so. In the standard scholarly biography American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen, Elizabeth Taylor  p 478 says some witnesses said he said "fucker" and others said Daley said "faker." This book mentions no anti-semitic remarks whatever. Thus the urban legend comes from an underground newspaper quoting an unnamed lip reader, while Royko found no one who would corroborate any of the story except the possible use of the f-word.   The standard biography does NOT repeat the urban legend, which originated with Daley-haters who were not at the scene. Rjensen 23:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

--

Isn't it funny how articles on Republicans document in great detail any potential wrongdoing or embarassing things they may have said, and yet one of the most corrupt and controversial Democratic leaders of all-time gets a sugar-coated encyclopedic entry written by apologists? Oh wait, it's not funny. It's sickening. Taste The Difference 00:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No kidding. Daley was a corrupt, vote-stealing tool. Welcome to wikipedia, the perpetuation of lies by committee. BonniePrinceCharlie 16:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

--

No, it isn't funny because the people who laugh about this are usually the people who don't understand.

Republicans are usually criticized in great detail because usually (ie. Robber Barrons) they commit wrongdoing to line their OWN pockets with money.

On the other hand, Democrats usually commit embarassing veniality (ie. Bill Clinton) and sometimes corruption and vote stealing to do good for the common man.

When Jane Byrne became mayor of Chicago, my mother thought that was the high point of civilization. 6 months later my mother was calling Byrne a bitch along with everyone else. I mentioned to my mother that she should know that ALL politicians are lying, vote stealing, money grubbers. It's the job. But some of those lying, vote stealing, money grubbers are stealing for me and some are stealing for Wall Street. I need them more than I need Wall Street.Tgdf (talk) 02:24, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Leader of democrats / catholic democrats
Just to address the reason why I reverted out the following wording: "He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party as a leader of Catholic Democrats, especially with his support of fellow Catholic John F. Kennedy in 1960 and of Hubert Humphrey in 1968." As written, this would indicate he was a leader of Catholic democrats but not non-Catholic democrats, which is incorrect. Also, by including the "fellow Catholic" descriptor for JFK, the wording implies that either: 1) the primary reason Daley suppported Kennedy is because he was Catholic; or 2) that the most important thing to know about Kennedy is that he was Catholic. These are both also misleading. So I have reverted the changes. Fairsing 04:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Better rethink that. The Kennedy family systematically reached out to Catholic Irish leaders of whom Daley was prominent. See leamer, "Kennedy Men"; Leamer pp 313, 434; Cohen and Taylor. American Pharaoh: p. 250; Timothy J. Meagher. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (2005) p.150Rjensen 05:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * What you say might be true. However, it seems to me that the issue is too complex to explain in one sentence. Steve Dufour 12:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

What is Ricard J Daley's favorites —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.131.38.70 (talk) 05:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

They Claimed Daley Said "Fuck You, You Jew Son Of A Bitch. Go Home You Lousy Motherfucker, Go Home"
It's written in many different resources. The 1968 convention article even has it sourced that lip readers claimed he said those exact words.75.72.35.253 (talk) 00:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

1968 and later career
At the bottom of this section (1968 and later career), there are references to some of Mayor Daley's nick names. The only 'Papa Bear' in Chicago was, and always will be, Papa Bear George S. Hallas!

I would add a common joke in Chicago was that the Chicago press would ask Mayor Daley if he ever thought of running for governor of Illinois, to which Hizzonor would reply, "Why would I want the demotion?!"

12.148.143.20 (talk) 00:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Disorder quote
I cannot cite sources, but my understanding of the policeman-disorder quote was that Daley was referring to a specific order and said, "The policeman is not here to create this order. The policeman is here to preserve this order." I understood the meaning to be that the police did not generate the order to clear the streets and Grant Park, but instead were acting to enforce an order that had been given. In his Chicago accent where "th" becomes "d" the word "this" becomes "dis" and hence the quote "The policeman is not here to create disorder. The policeman is here to preserve disorder." I have never understood this as a "slip of the tongue", this was an issue of local pronunciation.

Danaleeling (talk) 09:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

DISHONEST BIAS. IRRESPONSIBLY MISLEADING.
This page smacks of being written by Daley loyalists.

1. The page lacks a section called "controversy." That is shocking, since Daley is considered by some to be one of U. S. history's most corrupt politicians.

The very slight treatment of the 1960 Presidential election alone is shocking.

2. It is vastly commonly acknowledged by historians of the 1960 election that recount and reversal of the results of *TWO* likely result-tampered states, Illinois and Texas, would have resulted in Nixon becoming president in 1960. This is spelled out clearly and frankly in "Another Race To the Finish - The Washington Post" https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/11/17/another-race-to-the-finish/c810a41c-7da9-461a-927b-9da6d36a65dc/ and other sources.

Yet the coverage here, as of this date in April 2016, reads "Although often quoted as fact, this repeated claim is impossible. Kennedy won with 303 electoral college votes and needed only 269, meaning Nixon would have lost even had he won Illinois' 27 votes. Had Nixon won Illinois' 27 electoral votes, he would have had 246 electoral votes while Kennedy would have had 276"

That section is dishonestly, IRRESPONSIBLY MISLEADING. It is a blatant and almost surely willful omission of widely publicized germane facts. See the Post article linked above.

The word "controversy" appears merely once in the entire page. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I am not a Wiki author but this is presented in a potential call to action. Corrective action. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.119.141.15 (talk) 11:26, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

 * I have to agree a little here, though not completely. I don't know that Daley was necessary one of the "most corrupt politicians" but there were certainly many concerns raised, especially his relationship to the Chicago Outfit. The fact that the Outfit is not even mentioned in the article despite the fact that it was a significant factor in Chicago politics throughout Daley's career seems very strange (i.e. very intentional). Can somebody comment on the thinking here? -- MC 141.131.2.3 (talk) 18:58, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

 * I do find some of the text in the "Legacy" section to be biased and possibly partisan. I'm going to edit it out; feel free to continue the discussion here. Airbornemihir (talk) 20:23, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

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Does not paint an accurate picture
The current article really omits a huge amount of information about the cronyism and corruption overseen by Daley. Chicago was "a city that works" because the well-connected make sure their cash cow stayed healthy -- for their benefit. It could be improved with a more complete picture of how the city was run. Freond (talk) 18:12, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Richard J. Daley


text:
Johanna Schopenhauer

Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener; 9 July 1766 – 17 April 1838) was the first German woman to publish books without a pseudonym, an influential literary salon host, and in the 1820s a popular author in Germany. She was also the mother of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

Biography
Johanna Schopenhauer was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, to a family of middle-class merchants. Her parents were Christian Heinrich Trosiener (1730–1797) and Elisabeth Trosiener, nee Lehmann (1745–1818). Her father was also a councilor in the city. She was eldest children in family, at her was three youngest sisters, Charlotte Elizabeth (1768–1828), which married Felix Ratzky, Anna (1769–1814) and Juliane Dorothea (1773–1849). She was a precocious girl, sensitive to art and with great talent to learn foreign languages. Before turning 10, she already knew Polish, French, and English apart from her native German. As a youth, she aspired to become a painter, a desire her parents however nipped right at the bud, considering it improper that a girl of her class exercised "a trade."

In 1784, at age 18, she married Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer (1747–1805), a much wealthier merchant twenty years her senior. He was to become the father of her two children, Arthur and Adele, who were born in 1788 and 1797, respectively. In her autobiography, in which Johanna promised to tell the facts of her life "without poetry", Johanna made clear that she "no more pretended ardent love to him than he demanded it". She denied, however, that she came under pressure from her parents to marry Heinrich Floris. On the contrary, she subtly admitted that what attracted her to a union with him was his social rank and the possibilities that his wealth could open to her. The marriage was stable, but from the beginning Johanna felt that her happiness and that of her husband depended on her resignation to his will.

In 1793, the family moved to Hamburg when Danzig became part of Prussia as part of the Second Partition of Poland. In 1805, a year after her husband's death, Johanna and her daughter moved to Weimar, a town where Johanna had neither relatives nor close friends and which was, moreover, about to be the stage of war between Prussia and the invading troops of Napoleon. Though Johanna did not know of the imminent risk of war, she refused to leave the city when the situation became clear, as transportation was only available to her and her daughter, and her servants would have to be left to their own fate.

During the war, Johanna was active in providing services to those in need, nursing German soldiers and giving asylum to less fortunate citizens, whose houses had been taken over by French soldiers. With that, she quickly became a popular figure in Weimar.

After the war, she gained a high reputation as a salonnière (as she had planned before she left Hamburg), and for years to come her semiweekly parties were attended by several literary celebrities: Christoph Martin Wieland, the Schlegel brothers August and Friedrich, Ludwig Tieck, and, above all, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose awareness was probably what attracted Johanna to Weimar in the first place. Goethe's endorsement was a big factor behind Johanna's social success, and what greatly contributed to their friendship was the fact that Johanna was the first upper-class woman in Weimar to open the doors of her house to Christiane Vulpius, Goethe's mistress, who had hitherto been excluded from the shining social scene of the city owing not only to her lowly background, but also to the fact that Goethe and Vulpius were no more than lovers, despite living together.

At first, Arthur Schopenhauer chose to stay in Hamburg. At that moment he had every intention to fulfil a promise made to his father, that of concluding his merchant apprenticeship, however much that pained him and however much he would have preferred to study philosophy. Johanna encouraged her son to leave these studies behind and follow his desire to become a scholar.

Mother and son, however, did not get along. In letters written to Schopenhauer, Johanna makes it very clear how distressed she was at her son's pessimism, his arrogance, and his imperious ways. In one letter, she wrote: "You are unbearable and burdensome, and very hard to live with; all your good qualities are overshadowed by your conceit, and made useless to the world simply because you cannot restrain your propensity to pick holes in other people." (She destroyed his letters to her.) When, in 1809, Schopenhauer finally moved to Weimar, he established himself, not in his mother's house, but in that of his young instructor, Franz Passow, as it was the mother's impression that living under the same roof as her son was a bad idea. In 1813, she finally allowed him to move into her house, renting him a room, but the arrangement was soon broken after frequent arguments, motivated by Johanna's friendship with another lodger, a younger man called Georg von Gerstenbergk.

After 1814, mother and son never met again. All the communication between the two was from then on through letters, but even this was interrupted after Johanna read a correspondence from Schopenhauer to his sister Adele, where he blamed their mother for the death of their father, understood to have been by suicide, accusing her of going to amuse herself at parties while Heinrich Floris was bedridden, sick and abandoned to the care of a loyal employee. In 1819, however, Schopenhauer made an attempt to approach his family. That year, the Schopenhauer ladies lost most of their fortune in a banking crisis. Schopenhauer volunteered to share with them the inheritance he received from his father, but Johanna refused the offer.

It was only in 1831 that the correspondence between mother and son resumed. It was Arthur who took the first step, motivated, apparently, by his many difficulties: from the failure to sell his books to his bodily ailments. The correspondence continued sporadically until Johanna's death in 1838. Despite the cordial tone of the last communications between Johanna and Arthur, the latter continued to speak ill of her even after her death, making little of Johanna's mother skills and painting her as a thoroughly self-centered woman. For her part, in her will Johanna made Adele her sole heir. But this was probably intended not so much to slight her son as in recognition that her daughter would be in greater difficulties in future years, since Arthur not only managed to conserve his part of the fatherly inheritance but even doubled it, whereas Adele would have few resources at her disposal, something in which the spendthrift Johanna had no small role.

In Weimar, Johanna Schopenhauer made a name as an author. She was the first German woman to publish books without a pseudonym, and from the late 1810s to the early 1830s, her works turned her into the most famous woman author in Germany. In 1831, her books received a second edition, and the collection filled no less than 24 volumes. Despite all this production, her critical acclaim and commercial success, Johanna was never able to make up for the financial losses of the 1810s. Unable to maintain their lifestyle in Weimar, and also for health reasons, Johanna and Adele moved to Bonn. In the mid-1830s, Johanna's fame declined and their financial situation worsened. Almost without resources, Johanna wrote to the Duke of Weimar detailing her plight. In 1837, the Duke, in recognition of Johanna's fame and contribution to the city's culture, offered her a small pension and invited her to move to Jena. Johanna died there the following year. She left incomplete the manuscript of her last work, her autobiography, which narrates her early life until shortly after Arthur's birth.

Work
Not long after her arrival in Weimar, Schopenahuer began to publish her writings, consisting of articles on paintings with special attention on Jan van Eyck's work. These were later published in two volumes in 1822.

In 1810, she published her first book: a biography of her friend Karl Ludwig Fernow, who had died two years before. She wrote the book with the generous intention to pay Fernow's heirs' debts with his editor. The work met with critical success, which encouraged Johanna to pursue a career as an author, on which her livelihood and that of Adele would depend after the aforementioned financial crisis.

First came the publication of her travelogues. Prior to Heinrich Floris' death, the family made trips through Western Europe, mostly in order to help Arthur, then a teenager, develop the skills of a merchant. But the trips were also of great use to Johanna, serving as raw material for her travelogues, which were very successful at the time they were published, decades later. In 1990, her travelogue to England and Scotland was translated into English by Chapman & Hall — Johanna's only book to be introduced to the Anglophone world since the turn to the 20th century. Then came her fiction work, which, for a little more than a decade, turned her into the most famous woman author in Germany. The following are her best known novels: Gabriele (1819), Die Tante (1823) and Sidonia (1827).

title: Johanna Schopenhauer


text:
Fatal insomnia

Fatal insomnia is an extremely rare neurodegenerative prion disease that results in trouble sleeping as its hallmark symptom. The majority of cases are familial (fatal familial insomnia [FFI]), stemming from a mutation in the PRNP gene, with the remainder of cases occurring sporadically (sporadic fatal insomnia [sFI]). The problems with sleeping typically start out gradually and worsen over time. Eventually, the patient will succumb to total insomnia (agrypnia excitata), most often leading to other symptoms such as speech problems, coordination problems, and dementia. It results in death within a few months to a few years, and there is no known disease-modifying treatment.

Signs and symptoms
The disease has four stages:

Clinically, FFI manifests with a disordered sleep-wake cycle, dysautonomia, motor disturbances, and neuropsychiatric disorders.
 * 1) Characterized by worsening insomnia, resulting in panic attacks, paranoia, and phobias. This stage lasts for about four months.
 * 2) Hallucinations and panic attacks become noticeable, continuing for about five months.
 * 3) Complete inability to sleep is followed by rapid loss of weight. This lasts for about three months.
 * 4) Dementia, during which the person becomes unresponsive or mute over the course of six months, is the final stage of the disease, after which death follows.

Other symptoms include profuse sweating, miosis (pinpoint pupils), sudden entrance into menopause or impotence, neck stiffness, and elevation of blood pressure and heart rate. The sporadic form of the disease often presents with double vision. Prolonged constipation is common as well. As the disease progresses, the person becomes stuck in a state of pre-sleep limbo, or hypnagogia, which is the state just before sleep in healthy individuals. During these stages, people commonly and repeatedly move their limbs as if they were dreaming.

The age of onset is variable, ranging from 13 to 60 years, with an average of 50. The disease can be detected prior to onset by genetic testing. Death usually occurs between 6–36 months from onset. The presentation of the disease varies considerably from person to person, even among people within the same family; in the sporadic form, for example, sleep problems are not commonly reported and early symptoms are ataxia, cognitive impairment, and double vision.

Cause
Fatal familial insomnia is a rare hereditary prion disease that is associated with a mutation in PRNP. The gene, which provides instructions for making the prion protein PrPC, is located on the short arm of chromosome 20 at position p13. Individuals with FFI or familial Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (fCJD) both carry a mutation at codon 178 of the prion protein gene. FFI is also invariably linked to the presence of the methionine codon at position 129 of the mutant allele, whereas fCJD is linked to the presence of the valine codon at that position. The disease occurs when there is a change of amino acid at position 178 in which asparagine is found instead of the normal aspartic acid. This has to be accompanied with a methionine at position 129.

FFI is an autosomal dominant disease caused by a missense GAC-to-AAC mutation at codon 178 of the PRNP prion protein gene located on chromosome 20, along with the presence of the methionine polymorphism at position 129 of the mutant allele. Pathologically, FFI is characterized predominantly by thalamic degeneration—especially in the medio-dorsal and anteroventral nuclei. Phenotypic variability is a perplexing feature of FFI.

Pathophysiology
Given its striking clinical and neuropathologic similarities with fatal familial insomnia (FFI), a genetic prion disease linked to a point mutation at codon 178 (D178N) in the PRNP coupled with methionine at codon 129, the MM2T subtype is also known as sporadic FI (sFI). Transmission studies using susceptible transgenic mice have consistently demonstrated that the same prion strain is associated with both sFI and FFI. In contrast to what has been the rule for the most common neurodegenerative disorders, sFI is rarer than its genetic counterpart. Whereas the recognized patients with FFI are numerous and belong to >50 families worldwide, only about 30 cases of CJD MM2T and a few cases with mixed MM2T and MM2C features (MM2T+C) have been recorded to date.

In itself the presence of prions causes reduced glucose to be used by the thalamus and a mild hypo-metabolism of the cingulate cortex. The extent of this symptom varies between two variations of the disease, these being those presenting methionine homozygotes at codon 129 and methionine/valine heterozygotes being the most severe in the latter. Given the relationship between the involvement of the thalamus in regulating sleep and alertness, a causal relationship can be drawn and is often mentioned as the cause.

Diagnosis
Diagnosis is based on symptoms and can be supported by a sleep study, a PET scan and genetic testing if the patient's family has a history of the disease. As with other prion diseases, the diagnosis can be confirmed only by a brain autopsy post-mortem.

The real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC), a highly sensitive assay that detects minute amounts of PrPSc in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), has been reported to have a sensitivity of 50% in FFI and sFI.[Cracco et al. Handb Clin Neurol 2018][Mock et al. Sci Rep. 2021] However, this low sensitivity may change since the examination was based on a low number of cases, and the RT-QuIC technology is continuously evolving.

A test that measures the cerebral metabolic rate of glucose by positron emission tomography (PET), referred to as [18F]-FDG-PET, has demonstrated severe hypometabolism of the thalamus bilaterally in FFI and sFI, also in the earliest stages of the disease. This hypometabolism then spreads, eventually impacting most cortical regions.[Cortelli et al. Brain 2006] The complexity and cost of this test currently impede its use in routine diagnosis.

Differential diagnosis
Other diseases involving the mammalian prion protein are known. Some are transmissible (TSEs, including FFI) such as kuru, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as mad cow disease) in cattle and chronic wasting disease in American deer and American elk in some areas of the United States and Canada, as well as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD). Until recently prion diseases were thought to be transmissible only by direct contact with infected tissue, such as from eating infected tissue, transfusion or transplantation; research suggests that prions can be transmitted by aerosols but that the general public is not at risk of airborne infection.

Treatments
Treatment involves palliative care. There is conflicting evidence over the use of sleeping pills, including barbiturates, as a treatment for the disease. Symptoms of fatal familial insomnia may be treated with medications.

Clonazepam may be prescribed to treat muscle spasms, and eszopiclone or zolpidem may be prescribed to help treat insomnia. However these drugs do not work in the long term.

Prognosis
Like all prion diseases, the disease is invariably fatal. Life expectancy ranges from seven months to six years, with an average of 18 months.

Epidemiology and history
Fatal insomnia was first described by Elio Lugaresi et al. in 1986.

In 1998 40 families were known to carry the gene for FFI globally: eight German, five Italian, four American, two French, two Australian, two British, one Japanese and one Austrian. In the Basque Country of Spain, 16 family cases of the 178N mutation were seen between 1993 and 2005 related to two families with a common ancestor in the 18th century. In 2011, another family was added to the list when researchers found the first man in the Netherlands to be diagnosed with FFI. Whilst he had lived in the Netherlands for 19 years, he was of Egyptian descent. Other prion diseases are similar to FFI and may be related but are missing the D178N gene mutation.

, 37 cases of sporadic fatal insomnia have been diagnosed. Unlike in FFI, those with sFI do not have the D178N mutation in the PRNP-prion gene; they all have a different mutation in the same gene causing methionine homozygosity at codon 129. Nonetheless, the methionine presence in lieu of the valine (Val129) is what causes the sporadic form of disease. The targeting of this mutation has been suggested as a strategy for treatment, or possibly as a cure for the disease.

Silvano, 1983, Bologna, Italy
In late 1983 Italian neurologist/sleep expert Dr Ignazio Roiter received a patient at the University of Bologna hospital's sleep institute. The man, known only as Silvano, decided in a rare moment of consciousness to be recorded for future studies and to donate his brain for research in hopes of finding a cure for future victims.

In 1986, Lugaresi and colleagues first named and described in detail the clinical and histopathological features of fatal familial insomnia (FFI) [Lugaresi et al. NEJM]. This report was mostly based on a patient referred to as Silvano, who was diagnosed with sleep impairment in 1983 by Dr. Ignazio Roiter. Dr. Roiter referred the case to Prof. Elio Lugaresi, a well-known sleep expert, who, along with his colleagues, carried out advanced sleep analyses. As Silvano's condition quickly deteriorated, Lugaresi arranged for a postmortem neuropathological examination of the brain to be carried out by Dr. Gambetti, Lugaresi's former trainee. The collaboration of these two groups led to the 1986 publication [27]. At the time, a prion disease was not suspected due to a lack of prion-related histpathology and frozen brain tissue for advanced analysis. However, due to the devotion of Dr. Roiter and Silvano's family, more cases were obtained, resulting in the classification of FFI as a familial prion disease tied to the 178Asn genetic mutation. [Medori et al. NEJM, 1992]

Unnamed American patient, 2001
In an article published in 2006, Schenkein and Montagna wrote of a 52-year-old American man who was able to exceed the average survival time by nearly one year with various strategies that included vitamin therapy and meditation, different stimulants and hypnotics and even complete sensory deprivation in an attempt to induce sleep at night and increase alertness during the day. He managed to write a book and drive hundreds of miles in this time, but nonetheless, over the course of his trials, the man succumbed to the classic four-stage progression of the illness.

Egyptian man, 2011, Netherlands
In 2011, the first reported case in the Netherlands was of a 57-year-old man of Egyptian descent. The man came in with symptoms of double vision and progressive memory loss, and his family also noted he had recently become disoriented, paranoid and confused. Whilst he tended to fall asleep at random during daily activities, he experienced vivid dreams and random muscular jerks during normal slow-wave sleep. After four months of these symptoms, he began to have convulsions in his hands, trunk and lower limbs while awake. The person died at age 58, seven months after the onset of symptoms. An autopsy revealed mild atrophy of the frontal cortex and moderate atrophy of the thalamus. The latter is one of the most common signs of FFI.

Research
Still with unclear benefit in humans, a number of treatments have had tentative success in slowing disease progression in animal models, including pentosan polysulfate, mepacrine, and amphotericin B. , a study investigating doxycycline is being carried out.

In 2009, a mouse model was made for FFI. These mice expressed a humanized version of the PrP protein that also contains the D178N FFI mutation. These mice appear to have progressively fewer and shorter periods of uninterrupted sleep, damage in the thalamus, and early deaths, similar to humans with FFI.

The Prion Alliance was established by husband and wife duo Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh after Vallabh's mother was diagnosed with the fatal disease. They conduct research at the Broad Institute to develop therapeutics for human prion diseases. Other research interests involve identifying biomarkers to track the progression of prion disease in living people.

title: Fatal insomnia


text:
Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz

Johann Wilhelm Archenholz was born in Langfuhr (Wrzeszcz) near Danzig (Gdańsk) on 3 September 1741. He was a Prussian    officer, Professor of History and a publicist. His book about the history of the Seven Years' War (1756–63) was the basis for many reprints, as well as for school books.

Life
Archenholz passed from the Berlin Cadet school into the Prussian army at the age of sixteen, and took part in the last campaigns of the Seven Years' War. Retiring from military service, on account of his wounds, with the rank of captain in 1763, he travelled for sixteen years and visited nearly all the countries of Europe, and resided in England for ten years from 1769 to 1779.

Returning to Germany in 1780, he obtained a lay canonry at Magdeburg Cathedral, and immediately entered upon a literary career by publishing the periodical Litteratur- und Völkerkunde (Leipzig, 1782–1791). This was followed in 1785 by England und Italien (Leipzig, 1787), in which he gives an appreciation of English political and social institutions. Between 1789 and 1798 he published his Annalen der britischen Geschichte (20 volumes). But the work by which he is best known to fame is his history of the Seven Years' War, Geschichte des siebenjährigen Krieges (first published in the Berliner historisches Taschenbuch of 1787, and later in 2 volumes.

In 1791 Archenholz lived in France with his family, publishing German language reports about the French Revolution in his journal Minerva. While at first he agreed with the ideas of the revolution, his view was changed by the ongoing violence. In 1792 he had to flee the country as he was threatened to be beheaded following some of his political papers. In 1792 he moved to Hamburg, and there, from 1792 to 1812, edited the Minerva, which had a reputation for its literary, historical and political information.

Archenholz commissioned a Berlin artist,, to produce a copper etching for Archenholz's History of Gustav Vasa of the famous Swedish Nobility. He died in Öjendorf (part of Hamburg today) on 28 February 1812, where the street Archenholzstraße ("Archenholz street") and a school called "Grundschule Archenholzstraße" is named after him today.

Assessment
Archenholz' understanding of his role as a publicist was very modern for his times. He strove not to deliver opinions to his readers but instead unbiased facts. His main interest was current politics in Europe as well as their historical development.

Publications

 * Annalen der britischen Geschichte: d. Jahrs ... (1.1789 - 20.1800). Olms, Hildesheim 1997 (Reprint of the Tübingen edition from 1790 to 1800)
 * Die Engländer in Indien. Dyk, Leipzig 1.1786–3.1788
 * England und Italien. Winter, Heidelberg 1993, ISBN 3-8253-0110-9 (Volume 1–3, Reprint of the Leipzig edition from 1785)
 * Gemälde der preussischen Armee vor und in dem siebenjährigen Kriege. Saur, Munich 1990 (Reprint of the Berlin edition 1791)
 * Geschichte der Flibustier. Edition Fumfei, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-86172-008-6 (Reprint of the Tübingen edition 1803)
 * Geschichte Gustavs Wasa, König von Schweden. Saur, Munich 1990/94 (Reprint of the Tübingen edition from 1801)
 * Geschichte der Verschwörung des Fiesco i.J. 1547. s. n., Berlin 1791
 * Geschichte des Papstes Sixtus V. s. n., Berlin 1791
 * Geschichte des siebenjährigen Krieges in Deutschland von 1756 bis 1763. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1982, ISBN 3-7648-1203-6 (Reprint of the Karlsruhe edition from 1791)
 * Historische Bemerkungen über die große sittliche Revolution im 16. Jahrhundert. s. n., Berlin 1791
 * Historisches Taschenbuch für Damen. Saur, München 1990/1994 (Reprint of the Berlin edition from 1791)
 * Kleine historische Schiften. Schmieder, Karlsruhe 1791
 * Krieg in der Vendée. Dyk, Leipzig 1794 (Band 1–2)
 * Litteratur und Völkerkunde. Göschen, Leipzig 1.1782–5.1786
 * Die Pariser Jacobiner in ihren Sitzungen. Saur, Munich 1991 (Reprint of the Hamburg edition from 1793)
 * Minerva - Ein Journal historischen und politischen Inhalts, Berlin, Hamburg 1792 - 1856
 * Miscellen zur Geschichte des Tages. Scriptor-Verlag, Kronberg im Taunus 1979 (Reprint of the Hamburg edition from 1795)
 * Neue Litteratur und Völkerkunde. Olms, Hildesheim 1997 (Reprint of the Leipzig edition from 1.1787 to 5.1791)
 * Rom und Neapel. Manutius-Verlag, Heidelberg 1990 (Reprint of the Leipzig edition from 1790)

title: Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz


text: Talk:Maritime archaeology

title: Talk:Maritime archaeology


text:
Talk:Phoneme

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"It is virtually impossible to find a minimal pair to distinguish English /ʃ/ from /ʒ/"*
Peter Ladefoged, in his book A Course in Phonetics, cites Aleutian vs allusion as one of very few such pairs in English, and then only for some speakers.

So, it is, after all, possible to find such a pair. --Theurgist (talk) 16:37, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Virtually impossible" means very close to impossible, so it doesn't contradict there being a minimal pair. But as it is apparently likely to be misinterpreted, maybe it would be best to reword it. — Eru·tuon 17:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

 * Maybe "measure" vs. "mesher" (something that meshes)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Also an interesting example lunch and lunge, which differ only by [tʃ]/[dʒ]-- demis talk 09:37, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The site minimal pairs has: cheese/G's, chin/Jane, cheap/jeep, chunk/junk, choke/joke, chive/jive, cello/jello. −Woodstone (talk) 10:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe then ashery 1 and azury 2? Rare words but not as rare as mesher for example, yet aren't proper nouns like Aleutian. Unfortunately, variation in pronunciation exists but seems to be of a lesser degree compared to Aleutian also. So far these two are best candidates I think--138.246.2.199 (talk) 13:34, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Another example I thought of is zhoosh [ʒʊʃ] and shush [ʃʊʃ]-- demis talk 16:38, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "liege" /li:ʒ/ and "leash" /li:ʃ/? I suppose some people might pronounce "liege" as /li:dʒ/, but I've only ever heard it spoken the way I transcribed. If proper nouns are preferable to variable pronunciation, maybe "confusion" and "Confucian." The only example I can think of that isn't an affricate, doesn't vary in pronunciation (in any way I can tell), and doesn't use a proper noun would be the letters <ʒ> and <ʃ> themselves (i.e. /eʒ/ and /eʃ/), in which case we might as well just use mesher! (Which is still fine with me.) Etymographer (talk) 21:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I think this is very good example for the ʃ-ʒ minimal pair in English! I also came across recently 'jus' /ʒu:/ and 'shoe' /ʃu:/ - quite common words in modern day England -- demis talk 11:13, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If you pronounce the determiner this in its reduced form, [ðəs], then this allusion forms a minimal pair with the solution. --Theurgist (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

 * There's a 1970s book "Pronunciation Contrasts in English" by Don L.F. Nilsen and Aileen Pace Nilsen, which is basically entirely devoted to English minimal pairs. However, this book completely omits [ʒ] (except when part of a [dʒ] unit)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:49, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

2023

 * Because there seem to be at least a handful of true minimal pairs, I changed the phrasing and emphasised that they will likely involve less common words. I have also added an explanation of why near minimal pairs are still valid proof of phonemehood. Barefoot Banana (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

[k] and [kʰ] being the same phoneme
In § Assignment of speech sounds to phonemes, it is shown that an [skɪl] and [skʰɪl] would both be recognized as "skill" and therefore [k] and [kʰ] are the same phoneme. But wouldn't English speakers take [kʰɪl] to mean "kill" and [kɪl] to mean "gill"? I'm wondering if an example using a word-initial [k] could be used. (Please ignore this post if this is something that's obvious to native English speakers.) – Þjarkur (talk) 20:48, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This gets into a more complex aspect of the structuralist phoneme which is complementary distribution. We have the minimal pairs /kad/ -> [kʰad], /gad/->[kad]; /tak/->[tak], /tag/->[tag]. From these we can show that [k] and [g] are in different phonemes and [kʰ] and [k] are in different phonemes. From more general knowledge of English, we can show that [kʰ] never appears in the same environment as [k] meaning that we can argue [kʰ] is part of the same phoneme as [k], and since [k] is less restricted ([kʰ] only appears word initially) we'll call that phoneme /k/. Since /kad/-> [kʰad], how do we get [kad]? Well, for [k] to appear word initially it must not be part of /k/ in that instance. So [k] word initially is part of some other phoneme. Given perceptual evidence from English speakers, they tend to assume it's a /g/, so we can say that /g/->[k] word initially. So [k] and [g] are in the phoneme /g/ and [kʰ] and [k] are in the phoneme /k/. Like I said this is a complex explanation, and perhaps a simpler one using English fricatives (which don't have this pattern) would be better. Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 17:03, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This analysis matches well with the difficulties English speakers have perceiving plosive aspiration (and voicing) in Thai, where both phonemes [k] and [kʰ] occur word-initially. Many English instructional texts transcribe [k] as $⟨g⟩$ and [kʰ] as $⟨k⟩$. This leads the learners to pronounce $⟨g⟩$ as [g], which seems accurate to them, but sounds very awkward to Thai native speakers (there is no phone [g] in Thai]). The situation is different for [p, pʰ, b] and [t, tʰ, d], where the same texts use transcriptions $⟨bp, p, b⟩$ and $⟨dt, t, d⟩$. In these parallels, the [g] is an outlier, where a systematic approach would have written $⟨gk⟩$, which I have never seen used. The Thai government system of transcription stays closer to IPA by using $⟨k, kh, -⟩$, $⟨p, ph, b⟩$ and $⟨t, th, d⟩$. −Woodstone (talk) 05:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The section Assignment of speech sounds to phonemes ignores the analysis, which is far more logical (I wouldn't go as far as treating aspiration as underlying, as we'd have to transcribe 'let's kill' as - the $⟨t⟩$ in 'let's' can be glottalized or glottaly reinforced, unlike the $⟨d⟩$ in 'leads'  or, in conventional transcription, . It seems to make almost as little sense as treating the  pair as an underlying contrast between  and ). Sol505000 (talk) 06:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Linguistics in the Digital Age
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title: Talk:Phoneme


text:
Franco Zeffirelli

Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019) was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post–World War II era, gaining both acclaim and notoriety for his lavish stagings of classical works, as well as his film adaptations of the same. A member of the Forza Italia party, he served as the Senator for Catania between 1994 and 2001.

Films he directed included the Shakespearean adaptations The Taming of the Shrew (1967), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; Romeo and Juliet (1968), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director; and Hamlet (1990), starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. His Biblical television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977) won both national and international acclaim and is still frequently shown at Christmas and Easter in many countries.

A Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic since 1977, Zeffirelli also received an honorary British knighthood in 2004. He was awarded the Premio Colosseo in 2009 by the city of Rome.

Early life
Zeffirelli was born Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli in the outskirts of Florence, Tuscany, Italy. He was born after an affair between Florentine Alaide Garosi, a fashion designer, and Ottorino Corsi, a wool and silk dealer from Vinci. Since both were married, Alaide was unable to use her surname or Corsi's for her child. She came up with "Zeffiretti", which are the "little breezes" mentioned in Mozart's opera Idomeneo, of which she was quite fond. However, it was misspelt in the register and became Zeffirelli. When he was six years old, his mother died and he subsequently grew up under the auspices of the English expatriate community and was particularly involved with the so-called Scorpioni, who inspired his semi-autobiographical film Tea with Mussolini (1999).

Italian researchers found that Zeffirelli was one of a handful of living people traceably consanguineous with Leonardo da Vinci. He was a descendant of one of da Vinci's siblings.

Zeffirelli graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze in 1941 and, following his father's advice, entered the University of Florence to study art and architecture. After World War II broke out, he fought as a partisan with the Italian Resistance, before he met up with British soldiers of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards and became their interpreter. After the war, he re-entered the University of Florence to continue his studies, but when he saw Laurence Olivier's Henry V in 1945, he directed his attention toward theatre instead.

While working for a scene-painter in Florence, he was introduced to Luchino Visconti, who hired him as an assistant director for the film La Terra trema, which was released in 1948. Visconti's methods had a deep impact upon Zeffirelli's later work. He also worked with directors such as Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. In the 1960s, he made his name designing and directing his own plays in London and New York City and soon transferred his ideas to the cinema.

Film
Zeffirelli's first film as director was a version of The Taming of the Shrew (1967), originally intended for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni but featured the Hollywood stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in their stead. Taylor and Burton helped fund production and took a percentage of the profits rather than their normal salaries.

While editing The Taming of the Shrew, Zeffirelli's native Florence was devastated by floods. A month later, he released a short documentary, entitled Florence: Days of Destruction, to raise funds for the disaster appeal.

Zeffirelli's major breakthrough came the year after, when he presented two teenagers as Romeo and Juliet (1968). It made Zeffirelli a household name – no other subsequent work by him had the immediate impact of Romeo and Juliet. The film earned $14.5 million in domestic rentals at the North American box office in 1969. It was re-released in 1973 and earned $1.7 million in rentals.

Film critic Roger Ebert, for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote: "I believe Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet is the most exciting film of Shakespeare ever made".

After two successful film adaptations of Shakespeare, Zeffirelli went on to religious themes, first with a film about the life of St. Francis of Assisi titled Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), then his extended mini-series Jesus of Nazareth (1977) with an all-star cast. The latter was a major success in the ratings.

He moved on to contemporary themes with a remake of the boxing picture The Champ (1979) and the critically panned Endless Love (1981). In the 1980s, he made a series of successful films adapting opera to the screen, with such stars as Plácido Domingo, Teresa Stratas, Juan Pons and Katia Ricciarelli. He returned to Shakespeare with Hamlet (1990), casting Mel Gibson in the lead role. His adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre (1996) was a critical success.

Zeffirelli frequently cast unknown actors in major roles: Leonard Whiting (Romeo in Romeo and Juliet), Graham Faulkner (St. Francis in Brother Sun, Sister Moon) and Martin Hewitt (David Axelrod in Endless Love).

Opera
Zeffirelli was a major director of opera productions from the 1950s in Italy and elsewhere in Europe as well as the United States. He began his career in the theatre as assistant to Luchino Visconti. Then he tried his hand at scenography. His first work as a director was buffo operas by Gioachino Rossini. He became a friend of Maria Callas and they worked together on a La traviata in Dallas, Texas, in 1958. Of particular note is his 1964 Royal Opera House production of Tosca with Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi. In the same year, he created Callas' last Norma at the Paris Opera. He also staged at the Vienna State Opera: Don Giovanni (1972), La Bohème (1963), and Carmen with Elena Obraztsova and Plácido Domingo in 1978. Zeffirelli also collaborated with Joan Sutherland, designing and directing her performances of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1959. Over the years he created several productions for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, including La bohème, Tosca, Turandot and Don Giovanni. When the new Metropolitan Opera opened at Lincoln Center, he directed its first production, Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, starring Leontyne Price.

Honours
In 1996, he was awarded an honorary degree for services to the arts by the University of Kent at a graduation ceremony held in Canterbury Cathedral. In 1999, he received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In November 2004, he was awarded an honorary knighthood by the United Kingdom.

Criticism
Zeffirelli received criticism from religious groups for what they call the blasphemous representation of biblical figures in his films. He also roused accusations of antisemitism for describing Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ as a product of "that Jewish cultural scum of Los Angeles which is always spoiling for a chance to attack the Christian world."

Zeffirelli was a highly conservative Catholic, and served two terms in the Italian senate as a member of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia party. He was criticized by members of the gay community for upholding the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality  and by others for support of the Church's position on abortion,  which extended to calling for capital punishment for women who had terminated a pregnancy.

He roused controversy again when he told a newspaper in 2006 that he had not suffered any harm from sexual abuse by a priest as a child.

Personal life
In 1996, Zeffirelli came out as gay, but thereafter preferred to be discreet about his personal life. Zeffirelli said that he considered himself "homosexual" rather than gay, as he felt the term "gay" was less elegant. Zeffirelli adopted two adult sons, men with whom he had lived and who worked for him for years, managing his affairs.

Allegations of sexual assault
Director Bruce Robinson claimed to have been the target of unwanted amorous attention from Zeffirelli during the filming of Romeo and Juliet, in which Robinson played Benvolio. Robinson says that he based the lecherous character of Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I on Zeffirelli.

In 2018, the American actor Johnathon Schaech alleged that Zeffirelli sexually assaulted him during the filming of Sparrow (Storia di una capinera, 1993). Zeffirelli's son Giuseppe "Pippo", adopted by the filmmaker as an adult, issued a statement at the time denying the allegation.

Death
Zeffirelli died at his home in Rome on 15 June 2019, aged 96.

Selected filmography

 * La Bohème (1965; production designer only)
 * Florence: Days of Destruction (1966) (documentary short)
 * The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
 * Romeo and Juliet (1968) – Academy Award nominee, director
 * Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)
 * Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
 * Cavalleria rusticana (1978) with Tatiana Troyanos and Plácido Domingo (live Metropolitan Opera House – stage director)
 * Pagliacci (1978) with Teresa Stratas, Sherrill Milnes and Plácido Domingo (live Metropolitan Opera House – stage director)
 * Carmen (1978)
 * The Champ (1979)
 * Endless Love (1981) – Razzie Award nominee
 * Pagliacci (1982) with Plácido Domingo and Teresa Stratas
 * Cavalleria rusticana (1982) with Plácido Domingo and Elena Obraztsova
 * La Bohème (1982) (live Metropolitan Opera – stage director)
 * La Traviata (1983) – Academy Award nominee, BAFTA winner, art direction; with Teresa Stratas and Plácido Domingo
 * Tosca (1985) (live Metropolitan Opera – stage director)
 * Otello (1986) – BAFTA winner, foreign language film; with Plácido Domingo and Katia Ricciarelli
 * Young Toscanini (1988)
 * Hamlet (1990)
 * Don Giovanni (live Metropolitan Opera – stage director)
 * Don Carlo with Luciano Pavarotti and Daniela Dessì (live La Scala – stage director)
 * Storia di una capinera (also known as Sparrow; 1993) with Sheherazade Ventura
 * Jane Eyre (1996)
 * Tea with Mussolini (1999)
 * Callas Forever (2002)

title: Franco Zeffirelli