And the winner is Rossini...and the patrons

 

 A little follow-up to a blog post I wrote in March about Chicago Opera Theater's innovative fund-raising/audience building initiative, "The People’s Opera," in which it asked audience to vote (at a dollar a vote) to decide one of the operas performed in its 2010 season. According to a presser, the company raised over $47,000 and that voters chose Rossini’s "Mose in Egitto" (apparently last seen in Chicago in 1863). Voters were given 3 choices, the others being Britten’s "Paul Bunyan" and Mozart’s "La finta giardiniera."

27% of the donors were new, which is impressive, even if at small amounts. The only snag occurred when some participants felt their voting donations would be in lieu of their regular annual giving. The company obviously hoped the voting $ would be in addition to that. But learning from experience is what experimenting is all about, and I am sure that can be successfully articulated next time.

I applaud Opera Theater and its general director Brian Dickie for this initiative. Anything within reason that empowers audiences is usually a good thing. It will be interesting to see if another opera company or orchestra takes it up.

 

Posted Jul 04 2008, 06:01 AM by Andrew Druckenbrod
Filed under: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Opera Lady wrote re: And the winner is Rossini...and the patrons
on Tue, Jul 8 2008 1:06 PM

I was at a performance at Chicago Opera Theater this spring and saw that few were exercising their option, perhaps because the company didn't do an effective job of driving people to the area where votes were collected. (I bought ten votes for Rossini, too!)

It is much easier for a small opera company to do this kind of thing because they don’t plan as far ahead as larger companies. The best singers get snapped up as much as 8 years in advance, so if you want to do works that are difficult to cast, you need to put “holds” on artists early.

It would be simpler for orchestras to adopt this approach because their rosters are fairly stable from season to season, unlike our shifting cast of characters for an opera. And orchestras don’t have to worry about things like which sets and costumes are available for rental or how many "extras" will need to wear expensive wigs.

Still, it’s a very intriguing idea to have direct feedback from patrons about repertoire—and to have them pay for the privilege.

Andrew Druckenbrod wrote re: And the winner is Rossini...and the patrons
on Tue, Jul 8 2008 3:38 PM

Beth makes a great point here, and I second it: that the" voting for repertory" idea probably would work better in the orchestral world, within reason, of course. I actually seem to remember a few examples of this at orchestras I have covered, and certainly the Masterprize composition competition, with its audience component, qualifies. All I can say is that voting surely would engage and invest audience members in the season -- and I didn't need to have heard of "American Idol" to know that.