What Regional Opera Houses Can Do To Compete with the Met Movies

This article in the New York Times has had me thinking recently about what regional opera companies can do to capitalize on the Met's HD performances. It is, needless to say, a struggle for regional opera companies to compete with the opera movies; as one regional manager put it in the article, "They're invading our space." I sympathize with their plight and have never had personal experience running an opera house, but I do think there are a number of innovative tools local theathers can use to keep their neighbors coming to live performances.

My ideas gravitate around Utah Opera in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is because Salt Lake is the "regional" city I am most familiar with, and I am somewhat acquainted with their advertising, programming, and audience demographic. Utah Opera has the unusual distinction of being folded into the same organization as the Utah Symphony. This cooperation started about five years ago in an effort to maximize budget and resources, and it's had mixed results. For my purposes, I will stick with ideas for the opera even though all of these would have repercussions for the symphony as well.

1. Localize the live performance experience. In short, know your audience. The thing the Met can't do is understand a community and know exactly their tastes and interests. In Utah, this could mean introducing "theme nights" that take advantage of local populations. An "Apres Ski" night could invite tourists from down the mountain to dress casually and enjoy hot chocolate during the intermission. A "Family Night" could take place on a Monday, to capitalize on the LDS Family Home Evening, and use apprentices or University of Utah singers in a more intimate, child-friendly environment. Targetting the legions of young dating students in the area seems like a wise move: "Date Night" or "Romance at the Opera" or something like that could feature a particularly romantic opera, invite formal dress or sell roses at intermission... The point is that these are local groups unique to the Salt Lake region. Advertising for these nights could be done in a targetted market to reduce costs: just at the ski resorts, just at family hangouts or just at the universities. Opera can no longer be considered a sacred experience to be untouched by gimmick marketing. Audiences must be targetted and the product attractively packaged.

2. Insist on cinematic productions. Yes, that means casting for looks as well as voice. It's no longer acceptable to cast a physically unattractive woman as Turandot, the princess men die for, even if her voice is glorious. From what I've seen over the past couple of years, Utah Opera still has an opportunity to improve on this front.

3. Work to sync interesting programming across performing arts and academic organizations. If the University of Utah is producing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, put the Gounod opera on the program and then work with the University to cross market the contrasting works. This cross programming and cross marketing could be done with a number of different works and genres: work with the local art house to show the 1936 movie of Camille while La Traviata, featuring the same story, is playing at the opera. Do an exploration of Faustian characters across genres. (A similar idea was carried out with some success by Pamela Rosenberg at the San Francisco Opera.) Don Juan could be another theme: the Symphony could program Strauss' Don Juan tone poem while Mozart's Don Giovanni is playing across the street. This idea takes coordination and strong relationships with the other arts organizations, as well as additional funds for specialized marketing materials, but all the organizations benefit from this kind of cooperation.

4. Build alliances with other regional opera houses to share sets and costumes. This is already done frequently among houses, but I'm suggesting a more formalized union. I don't know much about the logistics of how this is done, but it seems to me that regional houses in the Rocky Mountain Region would benefit from working together to maximize resourses.

5. Abandon visits to schools and redistribute resources to getting students into the theater. I think there's very little benefit in bringing singers to school assemblies, etc. Opera music is so entirely different from what most young people are accustomed to today that one visit by a singer isn't going to make them immediately prefer a vertical melodic line over horizonal rhythmic music. Plus, they'll always associate it with school and who wants that. A more powerful introduction is the experience of actually going to the theater: seeing the otherworldliness of the curtain going up, people singing without microphones into a huge hall, learning to sit quietly out of respect for the performers, and most importantly, giving the students a sense of pride in their local organizations. This can be achieved by opening dress rehearsals, or using apprentices or vocal students in tailored programs.

6. Let donors decide where their money goes. To the extent possible, let donors decide if their money is going into the production costs, the singers' salaries or the young artist program. Maybe even let them pick the specific opera they want to put their money towards. Give donors a sense of ownership so that when they attend a performance, they can say, "My money helped create those costumes!" This kind of pride of ownership can only exist on the local level. Going to a Met movie doesn't give this type of satisfaction.

7. Promote the movies. As a regional opera house, do not let the community see that you fear the Met. Within a regional company there needs to be a healthy sense of the Met as competition, but I strongly believe that any audience interest in opera is good interest. It is too early to tell what the long term effects of the Met movies really will be on regional theaters, but my gut tells me that opera as an industry will benefit in the long term.

Some of these ideas take too much money; others are being carried out already. I'm sure there is a host of other creative ideas being tried across the country. I hope for the best for regional opera houses and applaude those who are doing their best to run them.