Timothee’s annoying but in this case imo he’s completely right and imo the main backlash he’s facing is from people who never watch opera / ballet getting mad that somebody pointed out the obvious that the general population dont care about these art forms. Unfortunately, they’ve increasingly just become more like museum exhibits rehashing the greatest historical works than a living moving art.
A smidge tangential as it was more about classical symphonies, but a few months back Dave’s Classical Guide did a video on the changes in classical music and his take was that the boom in venues for “high culture” music in the late 19th and 20th centuries was always unsustainable. Thus the contraction in recent years is less a death of these media and more a return to a reasonable level.
That being said, I think a lot of this goes back to, as usual, the economic factors. Opera and ballet tickets are fucking expensive so yeah, no shit average joe schmo is going to pick the $20 a seat movie tickets over the $300 a seat opera tickets. Which means the houses are motivated by the ticket sales and benefactor donations from the blue haired socialite crowd who care more about the ritual of the thing that supporting the new artistic expression so of course they turn out more for the classics. (Ballet has one exception though: The Nutcracker, a lot of companies make all their money for the year off doing that for a month and a half around Christmas.) If the funding structure wasn’t so market driven then it could be more accessible to people outside the well to do.
the thing is, there’s a ton of discount systems for young people to go to the opera, ballet and theatre because they;re all desperately trying to make them at least somewhat available to a new generation, like every major city will have a plethora of these deals, people just don’t care anyway
Timothee’s annoying but in this case imo he’s completely right and imo the main backlash he’s facing is from people who never watch opera / ballet getting mad that somebody pointed out the obvious that the general population dont care about these art forms. Unfortunately, they’ve increasingly just become more like museum exhibits rehashing the greatest historical works than a living moving art.
A smidge tangential as it was more about classical symphonies, but a few months back Dave’s Classical Guide did a video on the changes in classical music and his take was that the boom in venues for “high culture” music in the late 19th and 20th centuries was always unsustainable. Thus the contraction in recent years is less a death of these media and more a return to a reasonable level.
That being said, I think a lot of this goes back to, as usual, the economic factors. Opera and ballet tickets are fucking expensive so yeah, no shit average joe schmo is going to pick the $20 a seat movie tickets over the $300 a seat opera tickets. Which means the houses are motivated by the ticket sales and benefactor donations from the blue haired socialite crowd who care more about the ritual of the thing that supporting the new artistic expression so of course they turn out more for the classics. (Ballet has one exception though: The Nutcracker, a lot of companies make all their money for the year off doing that for a month and a half around Christmas.) If the funding structure wasn’t so market driven then it could be more accessible to people outside the well to do.
the thing is, there’s a ton of discount systems for young people to go to the opera, ballet and theatre because they;re all desperately trying to make them at least somewhat available to a new generation, like every major city will have a plethora of these deals, people just don’t care anyway
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: