Apparently Peter Gelb made a statement yesterday that the “Live in HD” broadcasts were “cannibalising” the in-house audience at the Met. I’d love to see the data on which that statement was based. I’d also love to see what data the Met has on how other companies are being impacted. My guess is that, if the statement about the Met audience is true, it will show other companies suffering too. So much for attracting a new audience for live opera.
I’m not sure I’d want to go down in opera history as the guy who killed the live audience with a second rate ersatz product…
ETA: Do not Google “cannibal cartoons”. It’s a bit like watching Puccini.
operaramblings 
HA! Read my mind – see comment to previous “Dull HD” post!
Just so!
I’m skeptical of Gelb’s statement – surely a significant portion of the audience for the HD broadcasts are far enough away from NYC that going to the opera itself is not an option? (Not to mention the difference in ticket price.)
Admittedly he seems to be the sort of person who would make such a statement without much data to back it up but why would he on this? Either it’s true and one has to ask why the Met has spent millions on a project whose effect is to diminish the audience for real opera, or it’s not true and he’s shooting himself in the foot unnecessarily.
WTF??? I have to agree with EW on this one. MAYbe a few New Yorkers are doing the HD instead of the opera house but really.
My Dad chuckles every time Renee or Deborah say “its better to see it here in the opera house.” Yes it is, but I would guess that very few of the people in the (usually sold-out) theater in central PA are likely to hop on the bus for a quick trip into NYC where they can drop a couple hundred bucks (of their limited income) on a live performance.
OF COURSE it’s better in the opera house. But most of us are in the movie theater because for various reasons we can’t get all the way to NYC. Isn’t that kind of the point of the HD broadcasts!!> What a jerk!
I’ve heard the odd disturbing comment in Toronto that parses to “I used to go to COC but I can see these big names close up for less”.
I’d guess the impact on a smaller company might be even worse. I can see people in, say, Winnipeg choosing to go to a Met broadcast rather than spend $80 on a ticket to see people they may never have heard of.
I can see the argument that it might diminish the audience for local performances (i.e. going to hear Fleming the theater rather than Perfectly Good But Not World Famous Local Soprano in a nearby concert hall). Diminishing the Met’s own in-house audience, though . . .I wonder if one wrote to Gelb or the Met, whether they’d cough up the data? I’d be willing to give it a shot.
Go for it. I’ll analyze it to death if you can get the raw numbers.
Email dispatched to the Met! We’ll see if they reply.
Well, I have to admit, that as sophisticated as I (think I) am, I gulp a bit at the prices as WNO. OTOH, you CAN get limited view seats (can’t see supertitles) for as low as 25 bucks. Even with the exorbitant parking price at the Kennedy Center, that’s not too bad a price (but parking at the Multiplex is free) 🙂
BTW, sorry about that rant in my last post.
Stehplatz at the Four Seasons Centre is $12. I can walk there!
I think what this all might prove is that the audience for opera (live or HD) is smaller than we think. So, given a choice, some of that very small percentage of the population at large who attend opera, are electing to see opera in the movie theatre rather than live onstage (for all the reasons listed above and elsewhere…cheaper tix; convenient parking; popcorn at your seat…whatever). And in the end, I think JG is correct that the effect is worse for smaller companies across North America (and perhaps the UK and Europe?). Whatever the box office situation at the MET might be, given that they’re in one of the world’s primary tourist cities, they’ll be able to draw from a much wider audience. Same goes for Covent Garden, Vienna etc. – the opera companies in these cities are tourist attractions in themselves. In Winnipeg, Calgary, even Toronto for that matter – we don’t have the tourist trade these other more major cities have. So, we’re relying on the dedicated local opera audience mostly, and if you split the pie too many ways….The MET probably needs the revenue from their HDs now (the movie theatre takings plus all the attendant sales of the DVDs and Blurays) but at what expense to their main product???
Gelb is probably right to some degree about cannibalization, but here’s the qualification he skips: First they lowered the prices of the cheap seats and raised prices on the expensive ones. I thought their reasoning was sound for this — ten dollars less can make a significant difference to the nosebleeders, but a fifty dollar increase is chump change to the average denizen of the Grand Tier. So far, so good.
But then the Met instituted an (imho) astronomic per-ticket surcharge (plus facility fee) which raised the price of a ticket by about ten dollars. And it was a stealth increase — if you were buying online, you wouldn’t find this out till the very end of the checkout process. So we were planning to go to four performances that year, got to the end of the checkout, and discovered we’d be paying eighty bucks additional in surcharges. Uh huh. So I went back and edited the list. End result: I saw Don Carlo at the movies rather than in the house. I sent them a note suggesting it would be more up front of them to ditch the surcharge and just raise the ticket price.
And they did, indeed, raise the ticket price. But of course they kept the surcharge.
So…add to all that collateral increases in tolls, fares and gasoline — it costs us about $80 minimum to get to and from NYC from Upper Rens-wijk, not counting food — and you’re going to find that people in the outer ‘burbs who would in past years have made the trek into the city are now opting for the HD whenever they can, and saving their NYC trips for the stuff that matters.
Pricing of opera is weird. One would need really segmented analysis to understand it. For example, the COC really jacked up prices for Tristan this year. The posh seats were $400. This didn’t affect subscribers so much but it was a big whack for the occasional opera goer. It sold out. Every performance. Even with the B cast. I don’t get it.
I guess it’s the ultimate axis of art and (the dismal) science. Tristan pricing was probably a gamble that paid off because the production had a track record already, and a trail littered with rave reviews. Any idea what percentage of the audience were not COC regulars at all?
I have no stats, just anecdotal stuff. I know people came to Toronto specially because it was Sellars/Viola and because it was Heppner. I know of local Wagner nuts who went to several performances and I know of local, occasional COC goers who went. I also noticed that there were quite a few returns that looked like they were subscribers returning tickets fairly late in the day (maybe for the tax refund). I don’t know how else to account for prime Grand Tier seats mysteriously appearing for an otherwise sold out performance two or three days before show time.