AH SING GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN WEST SERIES

Arriving at the top of the staircase at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for Nabucco, I was astonished to see the generous foyer area filled up with seats for the 600 or so patrons listening to LA OperaвЂ™s Music Director James Conlon giving his pre-performance talk.

Much of the audience comes for more than just the performance.

AH SING GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN WEST SERIES

Even here, however, the direction is of building a new, engaged audience: Bennett is proud that in its first year, his off-main-stage programming, labelled the вЂњdД“tourвЂќ series, attracted people from over 600 households in which no-one has ever bought an opera ticket: some of whom have gone on to buy tickets for main stage productions, proving the series to be a pathway for bringing in new audiences (the series included As One, and will move on to PiazzollaвЂ™s tango opera Maria de Buenos Aires in January). The exception, for the moment, is San Diego, whose audience Bennett describes as вЂњvery wise and very informed, but fairly conservative in tasteвЂќ. For Los Angeles, Koelsch asserts that вЂњthe opera house is the natural place for our community to come together for social political debate, it is the natural place where all the art forms meet, so it makes sense that it would be the centre of the community and not an affectation for the very fewвЂќ вЂ“ a concept the he believes is fully embraced by both audiences and donors.

As One, a two-handed chamber opera вЂњexploring the journey of a transgender protagonistвЂќ, has been a sell-out. Madama Butterfly вЂ“ вЂњa hot potato in the United StatesвЂќ вЂ“ has been set alongside Jack PerlaвЂ™s An American Dream, a three year old piece about another hot potato: the incarceration of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. In response, Lang is cultivating an audience which sees opera as serious, thoughtful theatre, вЂњmore than just a fun night outвЂќ. Extensive research has confirmed how вЂњsocially engagedвЂќ that audience is (this is, after all, the state where Bernie Sanders won over 70% of the vote for the Democrat nomination). Lang points to the pace of change within Seattle вЂ“ the fifth fastest growing large city in the US, according to reports earlier this year вЂ“ where the proportion of the opera audience under 50 years old has shifted from 20% to 50% in the space of two years. In fact, quite the opposite: Shilvock talks about the вЂњgreat hunger for repertoire diversityвЂќ of the San Francisco audience, while Koelsch points out that because LA Opera is such a young company, вЂњthere is no hidebound tradition within the audience about aesthetic expectationsвЂќ: his mission is вЂњto present world class artists for a receptive audienceвЂќ and he is no doubt that LA audiences are receptive to a wide range of work. Where commentators in London and New York bemoan the age profile of the opera audience and its conservatism, none of my interviewees showed any fear of staging contemporary work. There is obvious audience appetite behind this. ItвЂ™s instructive to compare that to the 2017-8 seasons of the Met and the Royal Opera, whose 52 main stage productions include just one new opera each. In a bid to woo its large Spanish-speaking population, San DiegoвЂ™s main stage features Florencia en el Amazonas, a Gabriel GarcГa MГЎrquez-inspired opera by Mexican composer Daniel CatГЎn. Three of the ten productions in LA OperaвЂ™s 2017-8 season are opera from the present decade SF OperaвЂ™s season was focused on a world premiГЁre from John Adams Seattle OperaвЂ™s 2018-9 season will feature Mason BatesвЂ™ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (a no-brainer to have coproducers including Seattle and San Francisco, the two cities at the heart of the tech boom). The first thing to strike one is the proportion of new operas in their repertoire. I spoke to CEO/General Directors from the four big West Coast opera companies вЂ“ Christopher Koelsch in Los Angeles, Matthew Shilvock in San Francisco, Aidan Lang in Seattle and David Bennett in San Diego вЂ“ to learn about their audiences and about the way forward for their companies. But thereвЂ™s more to the US than New York, and thereвЂ™s more to US opera than the Met: 3,000 miles away on the Pacific coast, younger companies are taking fresh approaches to the medium. When the world thinks about American opera, it thinks first about the behemoth that is the Met: the house that stages 30 operas per year and whose 3,800 seat capacity permits it to bring in the top box-office-busting names from across the opera world.

Ah sing girls of the golden west