Is Operabase still up to the minute?
mainEver since we reported the sale of Operabase to a Danish website, we have been receiving complaints that the engine has lost speed and comprehensivess.
One reader tells us: ‘Since Operabase is in Danish hands they don’t care for updates. So there is still no Gherman in the ROH Pique Dame (premiere in two weeks) And there are a lot mistakes in the names of singers and their agents. The important opening night of the new production of Halka at the Polish National Opera is not mentioned.’
Those Danes need to get cracking.
Worrisome
Aleksandrs Antonenko is still listed on the ROH website there is nothing on the website to suggest a change of cast as yet.
They must have hired Hamlet to manage the database updates.
To update or not update…
“There are more things in Den Kongelige Teater and the Palais Garnier, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your database.”
As one of the new owners of Operabase, responsible for the development, I recommend that all users who find a missing update report it to our customer service at contact@operabase.info who is diligently processing these as they did before.
No changes there.
As all regulars of Operabase has seen, some updates have been made that were needed of purely technical reasons to be able to prepare for the future.
We are however working on improving the site and addressing all issues that occurred in that process. We cannot work miracles but the purpose of what we have done is to deliver an even better service later in 2019.
For those of you who did not read the previous post here on slippeddisc about the sale of Operabase, I would like to stress that Mike Gibb is still part of our team as a consultant, but without day-to-day responsibilities. This ensures continuity for our many loyal users!
Hr. Carlsen: Your recommendations avoid rather than solve the issues in your disastrous “update” of this website –> the major flaw is in the functional reconstruction of the update itself. Anything I have found of ANY benefit has come from the original site, which can be accessed now as operabase.org (until you take it down). As far as what you “recommend that all users” do I instead suggest referring them to your website’s “Companies” section of each country and from there access the original operahouse websites to get their most recent information.
Et tudefjæs
It hasn’t been a good update. Searching performances for range of dates, e.g. 23 to 25th Jan and the listing doesn’t show performances on the last day. And the big annoyance here is that searches cannot be modified as there are no longer variables in the URL. Even without this, the cookie should be able to store the most recent search.
I’m Muriel Denzler, and have been working for Operabase since January 2005, taking care of the clients (artists, agencies, theatres, and sometimes audience), data collection, translations, and more.
The old website had become too fragile and almost impossible to update. Mike Gibb was a pioneer and he did a fantastic job, but parts of the old Operabase had been written more than 20 years ago.
We had to change server and website in order to be able to continue to offer the service Operabase proposes to opera professionals and the public, and if Truelinked had not stepped in, Operabase would have died.
When we moved over to the new server and website, there were more than 400 updates waiting to be incorporated, some of them waiting more than a month. It had become extremely complicated to add a new company or venue. On the new Operabase there are more than 500 new ones. The technology used for the new Operabase now allows instant updates, by us or the theatres themselves, and sometimes, Operabase gets updated before the website of the theatre itself.
Currently, our programmers are working very hard in order to restore the missing functions. Please bear with us and remember that these features were previously developed over more than 20 years, so we ask for your patience in this process.
I understand that it’s difficult to get used to a new system, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I still do hope that you will get used to and learn to appreciate the new Operabase.