In 2002, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reported that only 3.2% of the adult population participated in Opera. This week, the NEA released updated statistics: their 2008 research revealed that 2.1% of the adult population participated in Opera, the LOWEST of any art form. I have three things to say to opera company leaders, board members, and funders:

1. DON’T BLAME THE AUDIENCE FOR NOT SHOWING UP.

2. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR AND OWNERSHIP OF THESE STATISTICS.

3. IT’S REALLY NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE ON STAGE. IT’S ABOUT SERVING YOUR PRESENT CONSTITUENCY, BUILDING NEW AUDIENCES BY LISTENING TO CONSUMER PREFERENCES, AND SERVING THE FUTURE GROWTH OF THE ART FORM ITSELF. YOUR PERSONAL TASTE CAN AND SHOULD INFORM PROGRAMMING DECISIONS, BUT ULTIMATELY IS SUBSERVIENT TO MORE IMPORTANT GOALS.

Those of us who work in opera can come up with many reasons (and/or excuses) why participation in Opera has decreased so significantly in the past 6 years, but I have always asserted that one of the biggest problems in our field is that those of us who love opera, and who are responsible for leading opera companies, are TOO in love with the art form to really perceive it the way that it is seen by the majority of contemporary American society.  The majority of opera producers are not sufficiently market oriented. We must decimate this myth that opera has become unpopular as tastes have changed. OPERA HAS BEEN MADE UNPOPULAR BY THE VERY PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TRYING TO KEEP IT ALIVE.

Historical Fact: 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 21st century, 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.

Commercial Broadway and Off-Broadway Producer Ken Davenport recently blogged about the coexistence of commercial and non-profit producers in the Off-Broadway theater sector. He describes the increase in non-profit producing, and the reduction in commercial productions. He then asks if in 20 years we will only see non-profits producing Off-Broadway, and then further wonders if this is a similar trajectory that opera took over the past 200 years.

While opera’s trajectory wasn’t quite this simple, Ken makes an interesting point that most opera lovers either don’t know or ignore: opera was once a very commercial endeavor and a populist art form.  However, opera has not benefited from the coexistence of non-profit and commercial producers within the opera sector.  Non-profit theater producers have access to money from commercial producers in the form of enhancement funding. In addition, just because a theater company is non-profit doesn’t mean they can’t make money. Non-profit is a charitable status, and it means that no individual can financially benefit from a company’s success; but there are non-profit theater companies that that are turning a “profit” in New York and around the country – they just call it “excess” on their tax return. The Roundabout Theater Company reported an “excess” of $4,873,480 in 2007 (the most recent 990 tax return available online). I imagine most commercial producers would be happy with that sort of “excess”, but therein lies the difference – that $4.8 million has to be reinvested in Roundabout’s programs and cannot be split among “shareholders”, “investors”, or “board members”.  But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the non-profit theater sector doesn’t make money from time to time!  However, I digress…

Looking at the development of Museums in the United States can help to shed further light on the challenges we face in opera, and the parallels between opera and the theater sector. Art historian Carol Duncan explains that “the Americans who founded the nation’s major art museums in New York, Boston, and Chicago in the decade of the 1870s were enthralled by the V&A’s much vaunted power to improve and civilize the working classes, but they were also dazzled by the old master collections in the Louvre Museum and other impressive European art galleries.  Their combined gallery of fine art/museum of applied arts became the template for almost all later American museums.”  This path is very similar to the way American opera houses developed.  Our producing role model is in great part based on an antiquated European model.  Interestingly, in the United States, we tend to focus on the “classics”, whereas the European houses were historically operated less as museums and more as living theaters for new works.  We function, however, without the same sort of government support that exists (or existed until very recently) in most European countries, without a substantial body of repertoire in our own language, and most importantly, without a societal sense of opera belonging to the American consciousness.  Opera is still perceived by the majority of the American population as a foreign art. Theater doesn’t have that problem. There is an enormous wealth of work in English, both in the established repertory, and in the hundreds (or thousands!) of new plays and musicals written each year.

Opera companies and service organizations might like to believe that opera is becoming more entrenched in the general public consciousness, but the fact is, opera continues to be a marginal and relatively inconsequential art form for the majority of contemporary American society.  Companies continue to struggle with why the art they love continues to diminish in popularity and why they continue to have difficulty attracting and keeping young audiences, but it is their very love of opera that is making them blind to one of the biggest problems.  Building participation in any art form requires having, or building, a body of repertoire that appeals to the consciousness of the society in which you operate. Bluntly stated, our current body of repertoire appeals to a very limited market.  If opera is to survive in the twenty-first century, opera administrators must reflect back on the roots of opera as popular entertainment produced from market driven factors.  The marketing mindset has always been part of operatic history.  The problem that we face is that in the past, this marketing mindset was not articulated so explicitly.  It was understood by composers, librettists and impresarios, but it was rarely codified.  As we start to speak more openly about the need to adopt a market driven orientation, arts administrators cry foul – but in any period throughout history when opera was thriving, a market driven orientation to the development of new works was an inherent part of the process.

Successful companies, whether they are commercial or non-profit, constantly evolve to meet the needs of the market they serve. Opera companies have actually made some very important changes in the past fifty years.  The days of “park and bark”, where singers simply stand at the edge of the stage and let their glorious voices peal forth are, for the most part, long gone.  Acting has become a vital part of operatic staging, due in great part to audiences’ expectations that going to the opera should be a more complete and satisfying theatrical experience.  For the same reason, the days of 300 pound Mimis dying of consumption are also behind us.  Casting in the opera house now takes into consideration factors beyond the purely vocal abilities of a singer.   Many have suggested that we are now in the age of the stage director due to the increased importance placed on production values and theatrical effectiveness.  Although some musical purists bemoan the increased emphasis on the theatrical (at, to their ears, the expense of the music), opera companies would not continue down this path if it wasn’t supported by the majority of the constituencies they serve.

Unfortunately, although opera companies have made serious attempts to modify the presentational aspects of their core repertoire, they have given much less consideration to a re-examination of whether or not their core repertoire itself is serving them as well as it should.  They also continue essentially to produce under a model based on European traditions, a model that is most strongly represented in the United States by the Metropolitan Opera. The Met serves, in part, as a role model to the majority of opera companies in the United States, whether they wish to acknowledge this fact or not.  The problem is not that the Met’s producing model is a bad one, but that it is not necessarily the best one for all cities, for all audiences, and most importantly, for all missions.  The Met is essentially a museum that restages the classics with the great (at least, their goal) singers and an extraordinary orchestra in lavish productions.  American world premieres are rare, and contemporary repertoire in general makes up a small fraction of what is performed on the Met stage.  The Met serves a vital purpose, but are regional companies really serving their constituencies to the best of their abilities by essentially replicating – on a smaller scale, and with a lower budget – the Met’s producing model?  It is common for companies to produce rotating repertoire (either in a repertory season, or in a segmented season in which a few operas are presented for a limited run scattered throughout the season); they strive to hire the best and most famous singers that they can afford; they aim to put on the most lavish and exciting productions – often directly influenced by the Met or other major international houses; and their repertoire focuses on the “warhorses” with occasional supplementation by new or rarely seen operas.  Every opera company needs to understand their audiences’ interests, and the city that they operate in, while at the same time realizing what they have the ability to do best.

It is useful to look at the museum “industry”, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in particular, for further enlightenment.  The Metropolitan Museum, much like The Metropolitan Opera, is an enormous institution that strives to appeal to an enormous constituency by exhibiting works of art from the entire spectrum of world history.   The Metropolitan Museum inspired many other museums around the country that similarly aim to collect and display a diverse assortment of art.  The Museum industry, however, has discovered the benefits to specialization.  In cities where we see large diverse museums, we also see museums devoted to modern art, or Indian art, or art of a specific period or country.

Theater companies have also discovered that specializing has the potential to not only increase their audiences, but can improve both the quality and the impact of what they do.  The non-profit companies that Ken Davenport cites tend to specialize to some degree.  It is not uncommon to see companies dedicated to new works, Shakespeare, musical theater, and classical theater – all in the same city. In order for so many companies to exist side by side, a certain degree of specialization has to exist.  We can’t forget, however, that these companies could not exist at all if they were not serving a particular constituency or audience.  It is that very specialization which makes it possible for so many different companies to exist side by side and serve diverse audiences with differing tastes and needs. Some areas of specialization also serve different participation building goals and strategies in tandem with the organizations’ artistic missions.

Opera companies, however, tend to be large organizations that try to do it all.  While this might work to some degree, marketing guru Philip Kotler points out that “you cannot be all things to all people”. Unfortunately, this is exactly what most opera companies try to be.  Successful organizations, Kotler says, “engage in the search for their own uniqueness, what we might call a competitive advantage or advantages.  That comes by cultivating certain strengths and putting them across as meaningful to the market you’re going after.”  If the mission of an organization is dedicated to artistic endeavors at the expense or even partial disregard for the public it has the potential and desire to serve, should we be surprised that we are really digging our own grave? Peter Drucker, another expert in the marketing field, points out that, even if the mission of an organization is “universal,”  in order for it to be successful, “the institution has to think through its strategy and focus on the main target groups in marketing and delivering its service.”

So what does this mean for opera, and the pitiful participation rate we are currently experiencing?

Let’s look back at the co-existence of commercial and non-profit producers in the theater sector. In his role as Producer at The Public Theater, George C. Wolfe described the particular quandary that non-profit arts organizations find themselves in when operating in an environment predominantly inhabited by commercial entities:

The whole concept of the journeyman artist has disappeared. You are not allowed to go on a journey.  There is no journey. You’re either extraordinarily brilliant or you’re dead…a corporate thought process is beginning to dictate what has always been a small, individual- or community-driven art form[...] As the commercial landscape gets more and more bland in an attempt to appeal to everyone[...] the pressure’s put on the not-for-profits to be what Broadway used to be once upon a time – to provide exciting and challenging theater for the commercial landscape. As opposed to being what the not-for-profit originally was, which was a breeding ground for maturing talent, and an alternative to the commercial landscape.  We’re instead expected to pick up the slack.  So in the nonprofit world you have to be smarter about every single thing that you do.  There are plays that I did two or three years ago at the Public which I would be very cautious about doing now, because I now understand that I’m not just letting a new artist be discovered, I’m introducing a new ‘product’ which is a daunting task.

The fact that there is not a commercial equivalent to opera, as the Broadway theater is to nonprofit theater, is both a blessing and a curse.  Because opera is generally not popular enough to warrant commercial interest on the scale of Broadway (with rare exceptions), opera companies that actively engage in new works development are perhaps able to allow artists to continue their personal journeys with more freedom than theater companies that have to be mindful of the direct competition they have from commercial theater.  But, at the same time, because opera companies are generally not providing material for the commercial landscape, opera companies generally don’t pay nearly as much attention to broad audience preferences as do most theater companies.  In so doing, opera companies lack the consumer orientation that is essential if they are to have any chance of appealing to more than a very limited audience.  Although non-profit theater companies may bemoan much of what happens in commercial theater (and the repercussions that they feel as a result of commercial successes and failures), the entire theater community is more attuned to contemporary American society because of the coexistence of the non-profit and the commercial within the theater sector.

While we will likely never see a commercial opera sector that parallels the commercial theater sector, and there certainly is a danger in engaging in too commercial approach to any art form, Opera desperately needs CPR, and I’m convinced it’s not going to come from companies trying to market the same old product with new advertising campaigns, and rudimentary attempts (like this blog!) to engage in social media. The percentage of Americans trying, engaging in, and enjoying opera will only increase if those of us responsible for producing opera are willing to take a step back and reevaluate everything we’ve been doing – including, first and foremost, WHAT we develop and put on stage.

I was following a Twitter discussion (experienced ‘tweeters’ please feel free to let me know the correct term for this) about the role of young arts administrators.  Greg Sandow tweeted “a study found that younger people don’t like working for established arts org because their ideas aren’t listened to.” This is hardly news, but it opens up a very important question as pertains to programming and the overall activities of established arts organizations. If most Artistic Directors or General Directors at established arts organizations are  “older people” (as opposed to the “younger people” Sandow is discussing), are they the best people to shape programming and to facilitate constructive organizational change? If the “older people” are not really in touch with the constituency they hope to serve (note, I am stressing new constituents, not existing audience members), how well are they really serving their organizations?

Take a look beyond the walls of our “traditional” arts organizations.  As John Seabrook points out in his book Nobrow (a very interesting read, albeit a bit disjointed) at MTV, the three top executives feel that they are too old to trust their own instincts. In order to do their jobs successfully, they have to rely on a combination of market research, intuition, and YOUNG INTERNS more than personal experience.  Doug Herzog, the former head of Comedy Central who went on to lead Fox’s programming division, says that he explicitly refuses to rely solely on his own taste to make programming decisions. If one looks at any organization that is really in touch with the audience it is trying to reach, more often than not, the leaders of those companies realize that their own personal taste and experience are not nearly as valuable as their ability to assimilate information on societal trends and consumer preferences from a variety of other sources.  Yet in traditional/established arts organizations, those who make programming decisions are very often strong personalities that may be in touch with their current core audience, but are not always in touch with the groups they wish they could bring in the doors.  And let’s face it, if those of us who are directly responsible for running arts organizations are not actively trying to diversify our audiences, we are not doing our job.

At MTV, interns – who make up the core of the target demographic – have the possibility of moving quickly through the ranks. “As an employee emerged from the demo, he or she could become an associate producer[...] and then, while the feeling of being in the demo was still fresh, a full-fledged producer[...] Just at the age when people in other companies were starting to get loaded down with real responsibilities, people at MTV felt the pressure to leave, so that others who were closer to the demo could be brought up to take their places.”(Seabrook 81-82)  Interns at large arts organizations are typically are a source of free or low cost labor that are rarely entrusted with any artistic or programming related responsibilities.  When they do start to move into entry-level jobs, especially in the areas of artistic administration, they usually remain subordinate for many years to older, more experienced supervisors who continue to control the development and design of the company’s artistic product.

Unfortunately, it is the fact that these supervisors are older and more experienced (or more specifically, experienced functioning according to long-established, accepted norms and espousing a specific taste) that prevents the artistic departments of many companies from being in touch with the constituencies they could be serving.  In addition, the separation between marketing departments and artistic departments remains strong, continuing to fortify the misguided notion that marketing is simply supposed to advertise and sell the programs that artistic department designs and implements.  Without ongoing, responsive, two-way communication between these departments, preferably with the respected input of individuals who are strongly aligned with the target markets, how can arts organizations hope to effectively reach new audiences who are already not a part of the companies’ immediate families?  Imagine what could happen if programming initiatives were guided by a group of talented, diverse young adults in their twenties?  The results might pleasantly surprise audiences and administrators alike.

Greg Sandow also tweeted “Create new organizations! And many younger classical music people are doing that. Change is coming from the bottom up.”  Of course, I completely agree. At American Lyric Theater, the culture encourages and embraces input from the youngest people in our family.  But that is built into our mission, and is part of the reason I founded ALT in the first place. The big organizations still play a huge role in the public perception of the performing arts. They also get the biggest slice of limited funding dollars.  Is it not their responsibility to become more proactive in diversifying their audiences? How do we get arts executives at these companies to let go of their control to younger colleagues.  If they wait until these young colleagues have had the time to prove themselves, as is often the argument, they are going to miss the boat!  Ideas anyone…?