Being an opera singer will cost you $1 million

New York tenor Zach Finkelstein has been running the numbers on his chosen career.

And all the indicators are turning red.

For full-time performers, the game is rigged. There is simply no chance of making it given the start-up costs of building an arts business and maintaining it over time in a high cost of living city. The best-case scenario is you walk away early and have time to rebuild. The worst-case scenario is you have a middling career, strung along with a few opportunities every year, just enough to keep you going, and you are staring down the barrel of 40 at a mountain of debt with no other skills.

Below I’ll show you four case studies demonstrating that the inability to continue in a performing career and support yourself financially has very little to do with the expenses of running an opera business, although they are onerous. Or your abilities as a performer, although it is a necessary condition to be best-in-class. Success has to do with two major decisions you make when you are most vulnerable and know the least about the business….

Read on here.

Yes, you’d better read on.