[I have to stop for a moment, because my eyes have rolled so far back in my head, I can no longer see the screen. While we wait, some opera as muzak, because classical music only belongs in the background. Whoops, did it again.....]
Nico Muhly (a living and working composer under 40) had this to say about the Chicken Little school of journalism:
Seriously. Someone is paying someone else to write this meaningless fluff about the 'state of opera,' and the poor suckers don't even know enough to know where to look for their info, so they make an Excel spreadsheet based on what they find on some opera company's website [*cough*theMET*cough*] and call it research. They make some charts and some graphs and use different colors and a few emotionally charged signifiers and call it data.
Let's talk for a second about research - REAL research.
What's real:
Financial records for 501(c)3s are available to the public. You wanna know how a non-profit is spending their money? Go look up your regional opera company on Guidestar and see what you can make of the data. Call up their development department and talk to them about trends in giving. Call up the artistic administration and ask them about how they pick repertoire and factors influencing programming. Call up the marketing department and ask them how many different social media platforms they are using to interact with the public. Talk to A HUMAN at AN ACTUAL COMPANY and ask them for real facts and figures.
...and what's not:
Let's assume an opera company has an archivist AND a webmaster. Let's assume that archivist is the kind of detail-oriented person who keeps track of every program, every season, and let's also assume that their predecessors were the same kind of people. They made painstakingly detailed records. When the opportunity arose, they made those records digital. And they didn't make mistakes.
Now let's assume this company has a real webmaster, not just some kid from marketing who got the job because he knew how to use Twitter AND Constant Contact and could also set up a Facebook page for the company, because that's what the young people are using these days (sorry, my snark is showing again....). Now let's assume that the archivist has developed a searchable database that can interface with a web-based platform, that both the archivist and the webmaster have the time to make this happen (when the archivist is not also writing/proofing the program notes for the book that needs to go to the printer so they can send out the mailers - you didn't think the archivist was only an archivist, did you?) and that the company has devoted the online storage space to such an online archive, that it all functions the way it should, it's easy to use, it's bug-free, and bang! Online data archive! This happens in the real world, right? Because we should believe everything we read on the internet, right?! Of course!!
Research takes more than 30 seconds and Wikipedia. This is why Opera America does field reports. They lay out the parameters for each group, detail the boundaries of the study, and create detailed data analysis based on those specifics. Would you like to read one? Here - I have one for you!
This is the 2011-2012 Opera America Year in Review. Now if you're a dork who really likes looking at data (says the person who's writing this post, who tracked down the report for a conference paper in the first place), you'll find it very interesting to read about the financial ups and downs of companies at different budgetary levels, and what they did to try to stay afloat. Did they cut programming? Did they cut the number of productions or just the number of shows per production? What are their outreach programs and with which age levels/demographics do they interact? This is real information. It's presented in clear and lucid English. Please please PLEASE take some time to sit down and read it before you click on (or *gasp* share!) any more foolishness that is designed to raise your blood pressure and clutch your pearls.
Opera is a living art form that is changing with every passing day. I sang a performance of Un Ballo in Maschera to an almost completely full house last night. I also sang a double bill of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges with Stravinsky's Le Rossignol on Thursday night, and the balcony was nearly empty. Now yesterday was a holiday, and holiday performances are usually sold because going to the theatre is what people seem to do on holidays in Germany, regardless of what's programmed. Thursday nights are usually poorly sold because it's just before but not quite the weekend. This information is anecdotal, because it's based on my observations from where I stand on the stage. Do your homework but, moreover, demand that people who write for major news outlets do theirs.
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