“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780.
My grandfather was a truck driver and WWII veteran.
My father was a teacher and a peacetime sailor.
I am an opera manager.
Each generation honours those that come before them and after them. My grandfather fought to defend our liberty, my father taught to educate a people, now I strive to inspire them to further achievements.
On this Rememberance Day, Nov. 11th, thank those that came before for their sacrifice, and honour those who now live out their promise to make the world a better place.
The latest entry in the Fach U series, this week takes a break from the top ten to examine differences in opera-like things in various countries.
Nationalism and Opera
The Brits have Gilbert and Sullivan. That’s operetta. Mostly opera, but with plenty of talking. And it all rhymes. Lots of opera companies do operettas.
The Spanish have Zarzuela, which is sort of like operetta but different enough to be its own thing. It’s a thriving thing in Spain, and some US companies do them occassionally.
China, Japan and many other countries have their own forms of lyric dramatic art. They are all different enough to be their own thing. You can check out Cantonese Opera right here in Vancouver, and go online and see Japanese Noh opera anytime..
Americans have music theatre’s mash-up of opera, operetta, burlesque, English dance hall, and Amerian pop music. Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Lerner, Lowe and and a score of others revolutionized lyric theatre. What used to separate a musical from opera is that it had dialogue like a play, with songs scattered throughout. That line is blurred more and more these days, with great success. American opera in particular has learned a lot from musicals, now putting more emphasis on singers who can actually act, rather than those who used to just “park and bark” (stand and sing).
Rock on Garth!
Rock Opera is also its own thing. Sort of a concept album meets performance art. Jesus Christ Superstar is a good example. It is sung-though, features rock music, and is mic’d. Green Day just released 21st Century Breakdown, which they are calling a rock opera, then there’s Blur’s Damon Albarn’s awesome Monkey: Journey to the West which is a rock/chinese myth mashup stage production. Well, rockers by their very nature like to break the rules, so we’re not going to set any. Rock on.
I have to admit that I sometimes look at the arts and wonder why they continue to go to government, cap in hand, asking for funding. I mean if the arts were reasonable and viable, then we would all appreciate them to the level they would be economically sustainable.
Seething anger is (nearly) my only response to comments like this after 20+ years in the arts and culture industry. Let’s see if I can get this out there in plain language w/o insult:
The Arts & Cultural industry has as much right to seek public subsidy, incentive, and favorable tax and business laws as any other industry.
The Arts & Cultural industry employs as many, and in many cases more individuals than many old-line manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
The Arts & Cultural industry exists on a tiny fraction of the public subsidy, incentive, and favorable tax and business law as many of the other sectors do.
The Arts & Cultural industry has replaced government programs in health, education, and public welfare at a fraction of prior cost.
The Arts & Cultural industry is supported overwhelmingly by ticket sales and private contributions, both measures of public valuation of their services.
The Arts & Cultural industry provides a positive net return on investment for public subsidy, much like and in some cases greater than the ROI for other industries receiving such subsidy.
The next time someone asks why the Arts & Cultural industry should receive public subsidy or why it can’t be self-supporting, try to remember these points.
Then remind your questioner that you pay taxes too and you don’t give a damn about (sector X) which gets public subsidy, tax breaks, protection, incentives, favorable legislation, etc.
In other words, hide somewhere where there’s lots of places to hide! You know, like hiding in the warehouse full to props is probably a better idea than hiding in an empty gymnasium.
Of course, that begs the question of how to classify a geomotery like the Pacific Northwest. I would suggest that this would be a more ‘inhomogeneous geometry” than, say Nunavut or Iowa.
But here’s a fun take on it, if you like: ZOMBIE LINK
I love that sort of MOSAIC and ACORN market segmentation, so when I saw they had taken a slightly different take on on it, I was hooked. Props to Andrew Taylor from Bolz Center for Tweeting this. You can see his blog at Artful Manager on the right hand side bar.
What I noticed however, is that with the exception of the Culture Vultures, NOBODY attends opera in any great numbers. No segment has significantly better/worse attendance than the general public.
In England, about 4% of the population attends opera in a 12 month period. In the US and Canada, I have figured out that the number is about the same: 3-4%. [needs citation]
So Assume the following:
3-4% of your local market is like to attend your opera in a year.
You can calculate the total population of your local market.
Your local market is relatively stable.
Your marketing dollars are relatively limited, but stable.
So you’ve got:
A fixed market base
limited utilization of your product
limited marketing resources
How do you increase utilization (attendance)?
Increase market base
Increase utilization product
Increase marketing resources (or at lROI)
Increase market base:
Well you can’t increase the population, so you’d have to increase the geographic reach.
Bring the art to them: You could tour or transfer your shows. Both very expensive. Almost nobody tours or remounts mainstage shows anymore. Some tour kids shows, but that’s not what I’m focused on here.
Bring them to you: You could draw from a wider geographic. Ads and facilitation are the likely ways to do this. More ads further afield, plus some new incentive to make the trip; hotel accomodations, weekend incentives, busing. Effectiveness is likely linked to overall attractiveness of your location. Santa Fe and St. Louis have figured this out, as has Glimmglass in Cooperstown. This might be an option for Vancouver, but likely not for Milwaukee.
Increase utilization of product.
I think this might be key, but what you’re trying to do here is increase the percentage of people who “use” opera. What hasn’t been tried in 400 years? Trick is to find something new. This is where we should spend our time because it is the thing most under our control financially and operationally. Make the product more attractive, easier to use, more widely available. That sort of thing.
Increase marketing ROI.
I stated above you could increase your expenditures, but it’s not likely you could do that enough for it to have an effect in an of itself. How much more would you have to spend to attract 1% more of the local market base? If 10,000 buyers = 1,000,000 you’ve got a big upside, but do you really have that many more seats to sell over a year? Besides, nobody’s going to give a marketing director that much more money to spend in one year. Your conversion rate from non to attender would have to be astronomically high for that to be a good investment. You’d more likely have to spend…wait, you probably know how much you’d have to spend. What’s your conversion cost from non-attender to attender? Problem is of course there is a time factor involved in conversion which works against trying to measure this over the course of one year.
I’m rambling.
What I’m trying to say is that opera might want to stop chasing new audiences and start focusing on changing the utilization of its product.
two other points before I forget:
1. Opera has awesome customer retention. People come for decades. Figure out why they keep coming and NEVER EVER change that.
2. Opera heavy users started attending at what age? Figure that out. I would guess it is mid-30’s. What is it about that age that makes them more likely to attend?
3. That 80 year old subscriber started coming because they thought opera was awesome when they were in their 30’s. Figure out what makes opera awesome to someone in their 30’s now and you’ve got something.
Welcome back to Fach U!, an intro to opera for noobs. Today we’ll take a look at the Big Ten of Opera. Just like the Big Ten or the Pac Ten in US college football, these are the operas that are the perennial powerhouses. If you learn these operas, you’ll know 90% of what goes on in opera today.
3. La traviata (Verdi)
Originally, called “The Fallen Woman” this one is about Violetta, a courtesan. A young rich kid (Alfredo) has fallen for her, but Violetta’s hooked up with the Baron. She kind of likes him but sings a famous aria, Sempre libera (“always free”) to herself instead.
Act II rolls around and, wham! Violetta has left “the business”, fallen in love with Alfredo and moved to the country. Opera moves pretty fast. Alfredo’s rich dad shows up, demanding Violetta break it off with Alfredo ’cause she’s ruining the family reputation. Reluctantly, she agrees and goes off to Paris to party and get back in “the life”. Alfredo gets her “Dear John” letter and sets off after her.
Act III – big finish. Alfredo shows up at the party where Violetta has hooked up again with the Baron. Alfredo acts like a jerk and Violetta asks him to leave. Instead, he makes a scene, denounces her and throws a bunch of money at her feet, making his point about her being a courtesan. Heartbroken, Violetta faints and the guests toss Alfredo out before the Baron shoots him.
Did I mention Violetta’s got TB? Kind of a popular thing back then. So if Alfredo doesn’t aready look like a douche, now he’s got that on his conscience. But of course, this being opera, Alfredo rushes back to her, they proclaim their love, dad shows up to feel bad about it, and Violetta dies….and we’re done.
Violetta is a favorite with singers and here’s one of the best: Teresa Stratas who looks like she could actually be dying of TB, telling Placido Domingo it’s too late.
If you like Moulin Rouge, Romeo and Juliet and that sort of thing, you’ll like La Traviata. The music and plot are different enough from La Boheme so you might like one better than the other, but if so, good news! That might mean you can say you like Verdi (La Traviata) better than Puccini (La Boheme), which’ll give you a little street cred with the opera geeks.
Oh, and here’s Joan Sutherland singing “Sempre Libera”, . One of the more famous singers one of the more famous opera arias. It’s pretty famous, you might recognize this one.
4. The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart)
Finally! A comedy! Betcha know this one and don’t even realize it. Here’s the opening music (Overture):
I’ve used this version ’cause of the awesome MC Hammer comments below it on YouTube.
The Plot: Ok, try and keep up, it’s kind a nuts. Count + Countess. Susanna + Figaro. A boy servant named Cherebino who’s got the hots for the Countess. The Count’s got the hots for Susanna. Figaro, Susanna and the Countess try to expose the Count and embarass him. The Count tries to ship Cherebino off to the army. Figaro meanwhile has to deal with some old dame he promised to marry if he didn’t pay back a loan (which he ran out on).
There’s a famous scene where Cherebino has to hide behind a chair or get caught scheming to bed the Countess, then the Count shows up, then some other dude shows up, the Count goes to hide behind the chair, and Cherebino has to hide in a new spot and ends up dressing in drag. This is all extra funny because the singer who sings the boy servant Cherebino is a woman, so you get this whole woman dressed as a man, dressed as a woman thing.
Lots of mistaken identity in a really great night-time garden scene and everybody ends up matched up as they are supposed to, with the Countess forgiving the Count.
Here’s Ezio Pinza singing “No more gallavanting” (Non piu andrai). Pinza is a man’s man’s singer and we’ll talk more about him later.
And here’s one more famous one. You might not know this one, which is fine, but the opera geeks love it. In this one Cherebino sings of how much he (she) loves (lusts) for the Countess. I pick this one because it comes with handy subtitles (and that whole girl-on-girl thing).
This is a great first opera. It has great “tunes”, fun characters, and it’s funny. It’s not hard to follow what’s going on when you’re watching it, and it has that classic opera feel to it. Recommended for anyone.
Enough for today. Go back to our earlier lesson and compare Puccini to Verdi and decide which one you like better. You’re already on your way to knowing something about opera!
Next time, we’ll keep going with the Big Ten Operas and some of the sexiest opera you’ll see on stage….
The latest entry in the Fach U series, this week takes a break from the top ten to examine differences in opera-like things in various countries.
New research from Italy entitled 
