What is the future for opera?

OP, who knows? I'm a post-AIDS crisis millennial gay. My parents got me hooked on the theatre from a young age and then my gayness took it from there. I'm in my early forties and have been to NY about a dozen times. This past time was my very first visit to the Met Opera. I was with an older relative who is an opera lover. While I've certainly appreciated individual arias, I always thought all that recitative would bore me to tears. I must say, much to my surprise, I was pretty enthralled throughout. That said, I was, sadly, one of the younger audience members in our section. My guess... major major companies like The Met will survive for at least another generation (though, smaller, less ambitious seasons may become necessary) whereas the respectable, but second-tier cities opera companies won't survive. That's the U.S. I imagine the situation is different in Europe where public subsidies likely help.

I love opera but the MET is just too huge a theatre. Opera needs to be a more intimate experience. Not everything should be AIDA. At the MET, none of the comedies ever land because it’s too huge.

Nowadays it can’t get close to filling that barn anyway.

Europe's old industrial families and more generous governments will continue to fund it.

Where are the younger gays flocking to?

R4, seem to be flocking to where younger straights flock to—anything have to do with pop culture

Opera's rising stars.

The most recognizable opera stars are slowly dying off. Unless there are those to take their place, it might be only the spectacle standards which can sell tickets; it won't be the performer's name. Here is 83-yr old Placido Domingo singing a duet with Dimash Qudaibergen, a classically trained mostly pop singer from Kazakhstan, on a tv talent show where they served on a panel of judges to discover young classical music talent.

I'm an authority on the Opera subject as I coincidently, was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking about the South African Opera scene - Opera is going to thrive. A new generation of talented stars is ready to emerge and make their mark. 😀 Honestly though, it was a great interview and I learned a lot.

Link please, R8.

Opera is just not part of pop culture any more. Stars used to be on talk shows all the time. Everyone knew who they were.

If opera wants to be big again, it needs a presence on TikTok

It doesn’t help that old queens keep talking about how their long dead divas are the only one who can sing roles properly

I wonder if the advent of AI, making virtually anything possible on a screen and in audio, will eventually result in boredom, sending people back to witness live performances, especially in genres such as opera, where extensive training and great talent are requisite.

[quote] Opera, ballet, orchestras used to be a gathering place for gays.

Sixty, seventy years ago: yeah.

I mainly see people my age (mid fifties) or older at opera or classical concerts in the US, so I expect that the number of performing arts organizations is going to dwindle in the near future. When I go to such performances in Europe, there are many young people in attendance

Opera still does well in Argentina thanks to the Teatro Colon.

It's not just opera, and there are plenty of activities and institutions that are dying off. Horse racing, bowling, ice skating, etc. are far less popular than they used to be and I doubt they'll ever recover.

I'm a season ticket holder to the ballet

It's still alive and relatively well in Europe, where the arts, culture, and intellectualism is valued—unlike pleban, hyper-capitalist America.

Plebeian.

Yeah, autocorrect fuckup. Damn phones.

Just noticed it and wanted to post a correction.

Oh, r11, old opera queens have been clutching their pearls over the decline of singing since the days of Patti.

I perform in a full opera production at least once a year. ticket sales could always be better. but the companies who sell well-produced video streaming of the performances do really well

The problem is that it's really a form that died with Puccini. Yes, there are all kinds of fun and exciting operas that have been written since then (there is no bigger fan of "Nixon in China" then I am), but it depends on very outdated nineteenth-century theatrical conventions and it's made for a very different era.

I think more of the regional opera companies will die off, as was predicted above. We'll likely always have during my lifetime the Met, and Chicago and SF and Seattle and Santa Fe, but I don't see many more surviving much longer.

I really hope it's not over. I've never been to see an Opera, ballet or an Orchestra. We had planned to this coming year when we go back to Chicago. It would be sad if it was all over.

Well,the Chicago Lyric Opera will still be here in the year ahead, r24.

Thank you R24. Have you been to see it?

Opera is an amazing art. The works of geniuses performed by talented people who have spent decades honing their craft.

But in today's America, it's considered classist and a bunch of other things to think that anything is better than anything else and it shows. If Trisha Paytas were to do an album of her passing gas, you'd be considered a snob to say opera was better than that. Someone would leap to sexism.

Beyond that, there is the matter of attention span. Operas are long. And they are often in foreign languages. There is no scrolling through tiktok while attending an opera. If you want to understand the drama, you probably need to do a bit of reading. They aren't Marvel movies where it's just fight scene after fight scene.

And yes, there is the matter of the music of new operas often being atonal and "academic". But that part is at least fixable by selecting the right operas for the season. And people WILL show up for the classics cause the music is still catchy even hundreds of years later.

That brings me to my personal gripe. If you're the average opera goer paying a lot of money for a ticket, you want something closer to Zeffirelli than a minimalist staging with some modern politics shoved into it by making people where cow's heads or something. Doesn't have to be quite that level of extravagance, but really, most people want to look at something as nice as the music they're hearing.

Where now brown cow?

Yes, I wish DL had an edit button. Knew someone would catch that when I saw it. lol.

I just looked at the calendar for The Chicago Lyric Opera for May. The Listeners will be the performance. Has anybody seen that? I will do some research, but how does a person dress for something like this. Formal attire?

R16, exactly right. Horse racing, especially, is nearly dead, although it does have a solid, but very small, fan base.

I also think of fine China that has, in a generation, become useless

Every now and again, I’ll see youngish people at the opera—for special occasions.

Opera relies on fans that go to many performances over a season.

It all does when Charlotte Church was being marketed as a “Im such an intellectual” opera singer. Then she got knocked up by her bf.

oops

Does = died

I would include Detroit on the list of innovative opera companies that endure. Remember how they tackled doing opera during the pandemic?!

I don't think Charlotte Church was marketed as opera. Classical, maybe, but she knew better than to go for a career in that world. I respect her for taking the money and lowering her profile as an adult.

I doubt something as monstrous as the MET can survive, even in NYC

C Church was definitely marketed as opera to the non-opera going public.

r32, yeah, the "big three" that traditionally relied on subscribers, can't now. lots of people go to all three, the orchestra, the opera, the ballet, but only an individual show per season, if that.

Her hit single was an Andrew Lloyd Webber song.

In some European countries, the opera and theaters are heavily subsidized by public funding. I know, for instance in Germany, this allows some of the big operas to have a really diverse schedule, ranging from evergreen crowd pleasers to lesser known operas. I think, in the end, a society has to decide whether it really wants to apply the cold logic of the market to something that has value to be kept alive for cultural reasons.

Lately a lot of the bigger opera houses have been programming premieres of new operas to bring in young people, who are much less likely to see obscure 19th-century operas. I don't know if that's worked.

Atonal operas (by which i think you really mean serial music operas), which were a big thing at mid-century, are now pretty dead. Although occasionally something like Zimmermann's Die Soldaten or Berg's Lulu gets revived in a major European world capital, I don't think they get revived much any more. They're too alienating for the general public.

I meant atonal in general, not just serial music. I'm convinced to truly be popular you need operas that have arias that are ear worms. The 19th century operas have that at least.

And yes, I'm aware they are scheduling new operas at the Met and others in an attempt to win a younger audience. I'm not convinced that's the long-term solution given the new operas I've seen. Glass I can see being popular with a more general audience. Time will tell.

Opera is alive and well on this side of the big pond, but the majority of the audience is 60+. Exceptions are evergreens like Die Zauberflöte, Romeo and Juliet, Die Fledermaus, etc.

It still has an air, or bad aftertaste, of elitism and snobbery to it — that needs to change.

The opera is one of the last places one can meet cultured upscale gays.

Some things just need to die, or fade far into the background aka dark web.

Writing from experience in Ballet, for which I was a subscriber for several decades, there has also (along with a change in the audiences) a change in the performers, which I noticed increasingly starting about 2000. It's hard to describe, but it's a phenomenon like we call "reading the room." There used to be a feeling of engagement of "vibes" between the dancers and the audience, a connection which added to the excitement and feeling of performance and accomplishment in the presentations. The dancers would tap into the excitement of the audience, the audience would tap into the excitement and adrenaline of the dancers. Nowadays, it's as if the dancers don't even know there's an audience out there, and it's essentially just another dress rehearsal; and that chemistry between performers and audience is not taking place. Until performers can regain this sense of connection with the audience--and this goes for all performing arts--things are looking pretty dark for the future of live presentations.

It will survive only if they can find a way to integrate it with AI porn.

NY City Ballet charges a lot for the yearly holiday production of The Nutcracker and sells out,

[quote] things are looking pretty dark

It’s because they’re woke!

(Just kidding!)

r41 Some?? I think it is pretty much all European countries and pretty much all developed countries. Opera houses get US federal and state funds too, but at a lower percentage.

The fate of opera is not about the gays.

The audience is dying. It’s too expensive.

I have some friends who regularly attend The Met Live screenings at a local theatre, so perhaps live simulcast is the future. .. Looking at The Met's website, these shows are transmitted to theatres all over the country. My sister went with these friends once. She'd never been to an opera before in her life and said it was an amazing experience. It also gave a rundown of the story (providing some opera education) and included some up close and personal moments with the performers. Not everyone can afford to travel to a big city to go see the opera, but there's an audience out there, so the opera is coming to them. The seats in the theatre near us are about $25.

It will start to go away in Europe as public funding dries up. They can't be seeing funding western, "elite" culture.

Few people can afford any entertainments beyond a movie in a movie theater. Broadway shows are several hundred dollars, as are many concert tours - two people could easy come close to a thousand dollars if parking, etc. is in the equation.

r18 It is not valued, it is propped up by governments. Take that away, and you will see a significant decrease. Also opera is not more cultured than jazz or more modern art forms.

I took two teenagers to 'An Italian Girl in Algiers' by Rossini. It was staged in a 3 stooges slapstick fashion, which is the way it should be.

The two of them laughed their asses off and had a great time.

Chicago Lyric has drastically scaled down.

"Rent" and " Aida" were very popular adaptations of classical opera. The Baz production of "La Boheme" brought opera to Broadway. Better experiences than seeing a musical based on a freaking movie

[quote]It will survive only if they can find a way to integrate it with AI porn.

"Aida" - now ALL NUDE!

Opera is alive and well in Italy. The opening of the season at La Scala is a HUGE deal.

This lovely article from the NYTimes Dec. 13, 2024:

Yay! I’m so happy.

[quote]Also opera is not more cultured than jazz or more modern art forms.

You're wrong about that.

Opera includes many art forms. Jazz does not.

[quote]It will start to go away in Europe as public funding dries up. They can't be seeing funding western, "elite" culture.

What? What are you talking about? Explain further.

I condole them.

[quote]Where are the younger gays flocking to?

Grindr and Tiktok, bro.

[quote]I also think of fine China that has, in a generation, become useless

Nobody has formal dinner parties anymore except some very old people.

r63 That doesn't make it more "cultured" nor interesting. Just European chauvinism and racism.

Opera was invented in Europe, they have a cultural connection to it in ways that Americans don't.

r61 Cool and that makes sense given opera's history that it would still be popular in Italy. But there are over 50 European countries. If you think most opera houses are popular and can be sustained without public money, you are not being honest.

[quote]If you think most opera houses are popular and can be sustained without public money, you are not being honest.

In Europe the arts have always had funding from government.

[quote]That doesn't make it more "cultured" nor interesting.

Opera productions include a multitude of arts: music, the libretto, singing, ballet, acting, full orchestras, costume design, set design. The singing requires years of training and discipline. As does the ballet in Opera.

Also Opera, in Europe at least, is performed in historic architectural treasures: La Scala, The Opéra de Paris, la Fenice, Teatro Real, The Royal Opera House,Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), etc.

Culture is in the toilet. A lot of reasons, but they don't matter, I don't think.

Nobody aspires to be able to experience the heights of the arts. Now it's a race to the bottom with such culture as reality TV.

It's going to be hard to come back from the depths of the world we now live in.

Pardon me while I go kill myself.

But seriously, it's true; there's no coming back. Appreciate it all while you still can, however you can. There will be no renaissance.

It will do wonderfully as long as it makes people cry.

If opera goes, where else will all the queens get to wear their opera capes from International Male?

Better than the future of the Democratic Party.

r71 That is the point. You can't point to Europe and say the public is cultured when it is being propped up via public funds, not the general public. That is like saying the Smithsonian is proof Americans are cultured.

r71 Argentina is not in Europe. lol.

R76 - I knew what you meant from the start. It was very clear that you were referring to European cultural institutions being propped up by a more meaningful investment from their governments vs. U.S. institutions reliance upon the donor class and dwindling audiences.

R71 etc. either had serious reading comprehension issues or is just being willfully obtuse. Either way, a lost cause.

Interesting article about Houston Grand Opera’s partnership with a Barcelona company.

HGO is heavily underwritten by energy companies, of course, and has always been robust and Nixon in China premiered here.

We'll always have pickleball!

The problem for Opera in 2020s is attention span. It's been a problem for a few decades, anyway. It shouldn't be a problem. Operas were not written to capture rapt attention for hours. They were conceived for a very social audience who paid attention here and there, but otherwise had their minds and behaviors on other engagements and intriques.

A brave opera company would stage their operas in a more cabaret-adjacent atmosphere with plenty of spaces to retire from the production to chat and drink and, god forbid, smoke. The experience of the Opera box, with all its freedoms should be available to all. I think young people could warm up to Opera if Opera made gestures to the way young people pay attention.

R81 very true. In fact, back in its Vienna-Milan-Paris heyday (say 1720-1800), opera wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously. It was entertainment that had to appeal to the broader masses.