Why "no one cares about ballet and opera"
Plus, a shakeup in the classical music world.
When I included a link in this newsletter last week showing Timothée Chalamet callously commenting on the state of ballet and opera in the attention economy (and the actual economy), I hardly imagined the soundbite would balloon into a mainstream debate. It was on Thursday that my feed—full of dancers and general arts-appreciators—started to fill with pointed Reels and snarky comments, but Friday was when the institutions themselves weighed in with their own posts and discount codes. Sure, the New York Times was right to comment, but I can’t say I expected to see the discourse reach Cosmopolitan.
I’m not here to deny what Chalamet said. Obviously, we know his comments are not literally true—plenty of people care about ballet and opera!—but of course these art forms, economically, aren’t having the easiest time. That’s why the Met Opera is waiting to see if its contentious deal with Saudi Arabia will or will not go through, and, at one point, tried to court Elon Musk as a donor. We can surely talk about bloated salaries of executives and comparatively meager pay of artists—a big driver of unionization efforts across dance companies, in particular, over the past few years—but still the fact remains that funding has dropped over the past couple decades as mainstream understanding of, and appreciation of, the these arts has, too.
There is a good reason the New York Times last year asked if there could ever be another Mikhail Baryshnikov. They weren’t talking about if someone could reach the heights of Baryshnikov’s inimitable talent (there are a few working dancers today who could potentially do so). They were asking if there might be another time that a ballet dancer could rise to his level of high-brow superstardom, sans brand deals or speaking gigs. “Baryshnikov arrived at a very specific time,” Jason Diamond wrote. “Between the period when people like Leonard Bernstein or Maria Callas could be household names and novelists were regular guests on the country’s biggest talk shows and the era when the nation became obsessed with very new kinds of celebrity.”
Callas, Vanity Fair pointed out in its argument about this current discourse, made comments about the decreased public interest in opera in the 1960s. But also, now, we have Gustavo Dudamel, who has just taken up the mantel at the New York Philharmonic, playing Coachella—he’s the Leonard Bernstein of today, Alec Baldwin said at a NYP fundraiser late last year. The recently retired Misty Copeland, too, has name recognition beyond the stretches of the theater. Having her own Barbie helps.
With these examples, I wonder if we may come to a realization: that interest in the classical arts has not waned because they have lost any artistic merit, but that the means and vehicles they have to reach the broader public in a fractured media ecosystem (which is struggling, too!) make it vastly more difficult for them to reach the mainstream. I have to think this is why, when I pitched a women’s magazine a profile of the up-and-coming American Ballet Theatre dancer and emerging choreographer Madison Brown—who I am certain is on track for a promotion in the next year—I was told that she just wasn’t a big enough name. She has more than 70k followers on Instagram. This past week, she performed a principal role in Othello after being in the company for less than two years.
This much is clear: the classical arts have a go-to-market problem.
When we talk about the accessibility of the arts, we are talking about things like ticket prices. But what do we make of Opera Philadelphia selling out its season after adopting a pay-what-you-wish model? What about the difficulty of getting a seat at the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park, given its immense popularity? What about the fact, even, that the Metropolitan Opera—amid its current struggles—has added another performance of its much-anticipated Tristan und Isolde? Or that Nutcracker sales generate nine figures of revenue globally each December?
Plenty of arts institutions have solid marketing campaigns. Just look at Quinn B. Wharton’s videos for ABT, or the fact that pretty much every opera house worldwide hopped on the Timothée discourse as a means of self promotion. Lots of dancers and opera singers have major social media followings of their own. But what remains hard is getting people who might not otherwise follow these folks to find them in the first place.
In the algorithmically driven internet, a Brooklyn resident might get an ad for Fort Greene Orchestra’s latest performance—smartly marketed as the “world’s most romantic concert”—but that’s probably only if you’ve attended some other arts event or engaged with any arts accounts. I am constantly served campaigns for various performance arts. But are they reaching the people who, for instance, love the halftime show at Liberty games, but have never actually attended a dance performance?
I don’t have an exact answer to this, but my feeling is that they’re not. What the classical arts need, really, is more top-of-funnel opportunities: to be exposed to people who might enjoy them without really knowing they’d enjoy them.
Plenty of institutions already have offerings that have this intention. Think of orchestral concerts that feature hits from Harry Potter or Star Wars. Opera houses across the country, too, are investing in new works that they think could do better with young audiences: look at the success of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay at the Met or The Monkey King at the San Francisco Opera. For the ballet, The Nutcracker is as top of funnel as you can get, but also, New York City Ballet’s $54-ticket Art Series—featuring a post-show DJ and free drinks—is a great example of how accessible pricing and a sense of specialness can actually sell out a theater.
Still, that’s not enough. As Teatro alla Flopera astutely pointed out, arts organizations need to make it as easy as possible for people to attend. Discount codes that appear in fleeting Instagram ads are not sufficient. Neither are deals embedded deep in FAQs on websites that are difficult to navigate. People are willing to deal with the headache of Ticketmaster for Beyoncé or Taylor Swift; not for something that may very well be out of their comfort zone.
It’s not true that people aren’t paying for live performances. Just think of the ticket sales of those pop stars, or any others. People are less willing to pay, though, for things that are unfamiliar—and that’s what makes it so hard to get new people in the door to the symphony, the opera house, and the ballet. You can see many shows at the Met for, like, $30. The price is often a barrier, but not always.
It takes a particular kind of person—maybe that’s you!—to willingly seek out and expose themself to art forms with which they have no history. I have music teacher parents, grew up going to local musicals, and trained in ballet intensively. I’m predisposed to do this. It would be unrealistic of me to expect that this kind of behavior is normal or common in the mainstream.
Yes, it would be great to see more mainstream exposure of the classical arts that might result in more people going to experience live performances. But I’m not sure Black Swan, Maria, or Tár necessarily translated to ticket sales. It’s worth reflecting on the fact that a movie star’s comment—which was careless, but fair in some ways—has sparked a discourse about the arts that has become a bigger story than anything happening in the arts themselves. Why aren’t people talking about the rise of ABT soloist Jake Roxander? Why is pianist Yuja Wang not getting fashion editorials? Why does 30-year-old opera superstar Aigul Akhmetshina not have even a quarter of the audience as Olympian Eileen Gu?
It’s because their platforms of live performance are forecast less easily to wide audience. But they don’t have to be, if arts institutions are willing to open up a little bit more.
As for the ticket costs: the high production cost of live performance plays a role here, but there are tactics that can help. Pay-what-you-wish performances, as evidenced by the aforementioned Opera Philadelphia, are proven effective at filling theaters without having a negative financial impact, since ticket sales aren’t the biggest percentage of an arts organization’s budget, either. It’s the donors who have the power, and if organizations are willing to court what protestors consider dirty money—consider the frequent complaints about the David H. Koch Theater’s name—they should be even more willing to consider smaller brand partnerships that could provide cash while also getting more people in the door. Consider: the occasional free drink (in the case of NYCB’s Art Series).
A huge difference in the culture of the performing arts in the U.S. versus Europe is the social aspect. In Amsterdam, free wine was passed out in the lobby of two dance performances I attended. In Munich, the lengthy intermission allowed my mom and I to enjoy a full cheese plate. That, plus our two glasses of wine, cost what I have paid for two mediocre Malbecs in plastic cups at the Met.
People want to gather. People want to experience things IRL. But arts institutions are not making their lobbies a natural third space for those who hover at the very edge of curiosity. There’s a huge opportunity for them—now, at the end of this discourse—to let more people in if they can understand the new tactics they must employ to reach this total addressable market. It doesn’t matter how good a product is if you can’t get it in front of the people who don’t even know that they want it.
Here’s the news you need to know in the world of art and culture.
The New York Philharmonic has announced its 2026-2027 season—the first led by incoming artistic and music director, Gustavo Dudamel. I do have to give the Phil a hand for this branding. Bold and exciting! Highlights include an appearance by Marina Abramović, guest stars Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Joshua Bell, and more, Get Out and Amadeus in concert, and several Young People’s Concerts.
After withdrawing from the Kennedy Center, Philip Glass will premiere his new symphony, “Lincoln,” with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood on July 5. The BSO is expanding its beloved summer music festival by an extra day in order to perform the work.
New Rembrandt just dropped. Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum confirmed the authenticity of a painting, which it just attributed to the Dutch artist. Vision of Zacharias in the Temple (1633) had disappeared from the public view after an individual purchased it in 1961, but it was recently turned over to the museum for analysis, Le Monde reported. It is now available for all to view it there.
The National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, Jean Davidson, just quit. She told the New York Times she started looking for a new job “months ago,” given the Trump administration’s hand in the ongoing Kennedy Center turmoil, though she had intended to stay in her role till 2031 to celebrate the orchestra’s 100th anniversary. She’s headed to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills.
I do feel for the longtime patrons of the Kennedy Center who, as the NYT reports, are mourning its imminent closure and wondering where they will now get their cultural fix. But there is a positive here: smaller venues and organizations, like the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the D.C.-based Shakespeare Theater Company have seen an uptick in their ticket sales as people have boycotted Kennedy Center shows, or looked for alternatives as programs have canceled.
After 144 years, the central tower of Sagrada Familia—Antoni Gaudí’s Barcelona masterpiece, the tallest church in the world—has finished construction. The chief architect told The Guardian is was a “joyful day.”
Here’s another way opera companies are getting people interested: setting up shop in unexpected places. That’s the strategy of West Australian Opera’s Secret Opera project, which brings performances to locations like IKEA and shopping malls, The Guardian reports.
Eight more news items below the paywall, including a shakeup at a major U.S. orchestra.
