Operatic upturn as Houston bucks the Gelb gloom
mainHouston Grand Opera has announced a three percent audience increase this season and 92 percent capacity sales.
It’s a narrative that contradicts Peter Gelb’s gloom-and-doom line about the inevitable decline of the opera audience and the threat of bankruptcy at the Met.
Houston has also raised $165 million in donations. Full numbers here.
I seem to remember similarly positive results for San Francisco and Chicago, also. Chicago, in particular, has had several years of increased attendance and giving. It’s quite an impressive operation – maybe coincidentally run by Anthony Freud, who previously set Houston on its current course.
The picture (of HGO’s Show Boat) subverts a thousand words
Is Show Boat an opera in the U.S.and A.?
HGO has NOT raised $165MM “over the year,” but instead during a comprehensive campaign that has spanned the last seven years. Not to undermine their successes, just to correct an error in reporting.
I’ll be one of the ways they did it was by being nice and appreciative to their ticket buyers, and contributors and patrons – very much unlike the Met.