The median age of audience members at the Metropolitan Opera is 66 years old. I know this because I used to work there, and believe you me, on a good night at the opera it would be a challenge to shake a stick without hitting some serious facework.
There are many, many reasons for this: it’s an older form; the popular music of a pre-television (pre-vaudeville, actually) era, or the often esoteric work of contemporary classical composers that for better of for worse is not all that accessible to those of us used to melodic hooks and catchy lyrics. It’s an acquired taste. It’s long – often 3+ hours for a single show – and it should be, as it is also one of the more expensive forms of theater. The “best” box seats (with the best view of the audience, not the stage) go for $380. Orchestra seats are a mere $175-$275 a pop. For one show. So yeah, it’s understandable that younger opera enthusiasts are a rarity. I wouldn’t have gotten into it if I hadn’t been exposed to it so much when I was working there.
The Met’s admin offices are all tucked away inside the opera house, and the rehearsals and performances are all piped throughout the building via a series of Charlie’s Angels-esque speakers. So I’d gotten a taste for the music after a few weeks. But my real enthusiasm for this ridiculously over the top (and ridiculously pricey) art form came when I saw my first opera live.
To be honest: I don’t fully remember which one it was. Could’ve been Louisa Miller, a second-string Verdi work that wasn’t selling well (which means comps for the staff, yay!), or The Barber of Seville, with the Met’s old ginormous revolving set from the pre-Gelb era. Actually, now that I think of it, I think the first super-wow production I saw was Mazeppa, which was a new production that opened up to crappy reviews the first month that I worked there. It’s Tchaicovsky, so it was bangin’, but people thought the sets were campy and the concept overwrought. At least that’s what the reviews said. All I could think about it was big. Big and shiny. I like.
There’s the kicker. There is no amplification used in most opera (with the exception of opera houses with crap acoustics). Which means that if you’re sitting 5 storied up in the family circle nosebleed seats, watching the antlike figures on the stage, the music you are hearing is coming directly from their mouths with no help from science. It’s un-effin-believable. And when you relax and stop waiting for the plot to progress (which it will very slowly, or not at all) you can absorb the music going on in the pit. All those bits and pieces of orchestration coming together, the massive undertaking of a soprano filling a 4,000 seat theater with just the unaided sound of her voice, it’s mind-blowing. I always wonder in the scenes where the leads are singing directly at one another – do they need earplugs? Does the force of their companion’s massive vocal projection blow their hair back? It’s like an olympic event!
So yeah, that’s how I came to get behind opera. This amazement comes through patience and having an open mind and is totally worth it. AND since it is such a niche interest, you can have sublime dork-atiffic conversations with other opera enthusiasts and NO ONE else will know what you are talking about. I think that’s pretty damn cool. Those nosebleed seats cost $26 each, and they’ll loan you the binoculars for free. That’s where the real fans hang out.
The General Enthusiast 