Founded in 2005 by Producing Artistic Director Lawrence Edelson, American Lyric Theater was established to directly address the depopularization of opera in American society by building a new repertoire of works that appeal to contemporary American audiences. According to the most recent statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts,participation in opera is at an all time low 2.1% of the adult population – the lowest of any art form. Established opera companies around the country are making highly visible efforts to build audiences by lowering prices and by ‘repackaging’ the core, foreign language repertoire. While ALT recognizes the importance of these efforts, lowering prices is not a sustainable strategy, and there is significant research which shows that the core repertoire simply appeals to a limited audience, no matter how it is presented. These initiatives have had some very positive effects at deepening participation among those already inclined to attend, but they have proven less effective at bringing new audiences to opera.
One of the most fundamental concepts behind ALT’s vision is understanding that opera did not become unpopular. Historically, opera was made unpopular in the United States as it was removed from popular culture. During the mid-nineteenth century in America, culture was divided into popular and elite arenas as the social elite gravitated towards arts and cultural organizations. By framing culture according to their own tastes and sensibilities, the wealthiest members of society gained control of opera by taking it out of the marketplace that had, up to that point, catered to a broad public. By insisting upon only presenting foreign language works in specially created venues, which themselves fortified a code of behavior that was deemed “appropriate” for cultural enrichment, a small but powerful portion of society effectively removed opera from the sphere of popular entertainment in the United States.
We must remember, however, that in any country, and in any period of time in which opera was thriving, it was a popular entertainment form, in the language of the people, that passionately engaged and entertained large and diverse segments of the population. If opera is to thrive in the 21stcentury, we must look back to its roots as a popular entertainment form that developed as a result of the tastes of the societies in which it was produced. ALT’s initiatives are setting the stage to compliment the efforts of existing companies around the country by building a new body of operatic works that speak to contemporary audiences on their own terms – as vivid music-theater, based on the classical traditions, that have evolved to keep pace with the interests of our diverse contemporary American communities.