Opera Philadelphia’s Anthony Roth Costanzo wants art to be a civic right

“Many people, some on my staff, some on my board, many people in the industry, said this is crazy, you’re going to lose audience, you’re going to lose people,” he says. But “in order to innovate, we have to take risks, and in order to take risks, we have to accept the possibility of failure.”

Constanzo is also frank about the challenge modern opera companies face. Not only is it difficult to get people to unplug from the Internet and come to a live performance; opera itself is a particularly hard sell. “We have to be honest that not many people are interested in opera,” Costanzo admits.

The singing director

It’s an important truth to confront, especially for someone who’s closer to the art form than a typical institutional leader. “I think I’m one of the only singers in the prime of their career running an organization,” Costanzo says. He came to the company’s helm as an international producer, curator, acclaimed countertenor (he’s working on a book about this style of singing), and Grammy-nominated recording artist.

He says that running an opera company requires just as much creativity and discipline as performing opera, which he calls “the Olympics of singing.” He says this experience gives him two ways to promote the art form: through his firsthand knowledge of the powerful relationship between performer and audience, and by “building new models, new structures, new ways of thinking about this art form which is often misunderstood as elitist.”

The pick-your-price numbers

Now that the first pick-your-price season is finished with the close of Don Giovanni earlier this month, the numbers are telling a big story.

A spokesperson for Opera Philadelphia says that the company sold out all of its full-view seats for the entire season (more than 10,500 pick-your-price tickets) in just one month after these went on sale in late August 2024. Costanzo proudly notes that it’s the only opera company in America to sell out its entire season in advance.

There were other benefits of the low price: 67 percent of these sales were first-time Opera Philadelphia ticket-buyers (up more than 20 percent over last year). Data from the company’s 2024 Fringe show The Listeners revealed that more than two-thirds of the ticket-buyers were under age 45, 28 percent were BIPOC (up from 20 percent last year), and just over half came from households making less than $90K.

Audiences came from around the country, too: they hailed from 34 US states, DC, and Puerto Rico. While it’s not unusual for opera fans to travel, Costanzo calls this “a great testament to both the city of Philadelphia and to what [Opera Philadelphia is] doing,” and notes that air or train fare and a hotel ultimately might cost a pick-your-price buyer less than tickets to the opera in their own city. And for local families, he adds, bringing your kids to the opera now costs less than getting a babysitter.

Costs and benefits of a low price

While Costanzo says many patrons do choose to pay a higher price than the $11 minimum, the move cost the company a slice of its budget: ticket sales in the 24-25 season accounted for four percent of the company’s revenue, down from eight percent the previous year. But there are upsides.

If you pay $200 for a ticket, and someone asks you to donate on the way out, you’re probably going to decline, Costanzo says. But if you paid $11? It’s easier to give. He points to more than 700 brand-new donors among pick-your-price buyers.

And that effect is not limited to small donations. “We’ve had some major foundations and individuals step up in part because there’s now two things to support,” he explains: the art itself, but also the access and the shifting demographics in the audience, because the art is becoming “a civic right and not a luxury.”

There are other benefits, too. You save on marketing costs when you sell out quickly. And that trend continues. Pick-your-price tickets are back for the 2025-2026 season (the company’s 50th), and a pre-sale for donors and subscribers (including a new Opera Pass program) came close to meeting the company’s goal for single-ticket sales before they even became available to the general public on May 15.

“We’re selling on average about three times as fast as last year,” Costanzo says, and adds that the price people are choosing to pay is trending up.

Reflecting the audience

All of that matters in an environment where the federal government is increasingly hostile to the arts, clawing back promised grants, attempting to eliminate agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts, and strangling DEI initiatives.

Costanzo says that the company is not going to apply for federal funding under this administration “because we don’t feel that our goals and values align anymore. Especially with our pick-your-price audience, we want to reflect that audience on our stage, and with the stories we tell.” He calls the current environment “daunting” but insists “it’s really important that our arts institutions remain committed to expression and to identity,” and that Opera Philadelphia is “committed to that mission now more than ever.”

Philly goes to the opera

“I don’t think pick your price would have happened this way in any other city,” Costanzo says. “Philadelphians are so proud and they all talk to each other, and it’s big enough and broad enough to reach a lot of people, but it’s also a real community here where word-of-mouth and buzz still actually function.”

If you want to join in for the next season, he says to hurry. “I want you to be part of the opera … get your seats and join us. This is the moment and I don’t want people to miss out.”