Opera struggles to hit a high note

Halley Bondy used to spend many afternoons at an iconic New York locale: the Metropolitan Opera. Once every couple of months, she’d catch a classic like La Bohème or Madame Butterfly. “You’re amid the best of the best of everything, down to the triangle player,” Bondy said.

Bondy still loves opera, but, after the pandemic, she fell out of the habit of going to the Met. She’s a mom now, and splurging on an opera ticket isn’t something she can prioritize quite as often.

And she’s not the only one. In recent years, the Met has struggled to bring in audiences. For the first half of the opera house’s 2025–2026 season, ticket sales only reached 72% capacity. In January, the opera house announced sweeping layoffs and reportedly even considered selling two massive murals by artist Marc Chagall that hang in the Met’s atrium. These cuts came in spite of a pending financing deal with Saudi Arabia.

The Met is the largest opera house in the world by capacity, and it’s something of a bellwether for the art form in America. Across the nation, opera attendance has steadily declined, even though performances continue to attract first-time attendees. Turning those first timers into patrons has become a priority for companies trying to keep opera from fading into obscurity.

Opera dates back to the 16th century with Italian composer Jacopo Peri’s Euridice. Many newer operas are written in English, and most U.S. opera companies provide subtitles to accompany Italian works, which comprise many of the most iconic productions.

Samantha Miller, an opera singer and a vocal studies professor at Liberty University, describes an evening at the opera as a “highly culturalized event.” That’s because operas involve elaborate stage designs, displays of vocal prowess, and live orchestra performances. “It’s really kind of a big collaboration of various forms of art that are being expressed in one night,” Miller said.

Despite showcasing several fine art mediums at their best, opera is a particularly hard sell when “people don’t want to leave their houses for entertainment,” Miller said.

About 3.2% of Americans saw an opera in 2002. By 2017, that number had dropped to 2.2%, and it fell again after pandemic-era lockdowns. Sixty-eight opera companies reported ticket revenue declines of 22% between 2019 and 2023.

Within the past decade, several opera com­panies have shuttered or filed for bankruptcy including Maryland Lyric Opera, New York’s On Site Opera, and Syracuse Opera. Those left have reduced their per-season productions. For its 2026–27 season, the Met will showcase 17 productions, down from 23 in 2022–23.

Nevertheless, new patrons keep trickling in. According to a 2024 survey from Opera America, “Opera companies of all sizes documented record-breaking levels of first-time attendance.” Between 2020 and 2024, roughly 12% of opera ticket buyers were new to the opera. Young adults under 34 made up about one-third of that group.

According to the survey, most of the first-time attendees saw a well-known opera like La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. Michael Bobbitt, president of Opera America, says it’s the same for ballet. “A lot of kids are introduced to dance by seeing The Nutcracker or Swan Lake,” Bobbitt said. “And so you want to go to see something you’ve heard of, and then turn you into an opera-goer.”

Samantha Miller says classical operas keep resonating with audiences because they blend comedy and wisdom. Take Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which tells the story of a philandering nobleman. Despite being fairly lighthearted, the opera includes some poignant lessons. “There’s this thread throughout of seeing this man continually choose evil, even though there were people in his life trying to help save him,” Miller said.

Because the art form can display gospel truths in a unique way, “I think it plants seeds,” she added.

But Miller believes modern audiences may need to be convinced that operas can tell relevant stories. Many early operas were based on Greek myths. But in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s day, that changed. “Operas were being written based on plays that were just about normal life,” Miller said. “The characters would have been relatable to the people who were going to see them.” In a similar way, Miller argues, reframing classical operas using contemporary settings could help modern audiences relate.

Opera companies are leveraging social media to raise awareness among younger prospective patrons. Last year, the Met offered free tickets to 70 influencers. But typical ticket prices could still be an obstacle.

Although about a third of seats for the Met Opera sell for under $100, the average ticket costs around $300. That was the only barrier for 25-year-old content creator Shannon Du.

But for patrons under 40, the New York opera house has an ongoing promotion offering discounted ticket prices and complimentary drinks at certain shows. After Du saw a TikTok video about these events, she and a few friends got dressed up to see Antony and Cleopatra last June.

“Watching the opera felt so surreal because that was something that was on my bucket list for so long,” Du said.

Now that she’s been introduced to live opera, Du hopes to see about two or three a year. She may even catch a performance at the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris when she visits later this year.