The Phantom of Modern Opera: How Economics and Politics Affect the Programming Strategies of Opera Houses

Despite the increasing number of music compositions by living composers, non-profit opera houses are often reluctant to include modern and contemporary operas in their repertoire. The authors consider the extent to which willingness to stage modern and contemporary operas varies with the economic and political conditions that shape the environment in which an opera house functions (i.e., demand for opera, local community openness to risk, public funding). They test their hypotheses by using panel data regression analysis to examine the programming decisions of 30 Italian opera houses over five years. The results suggest that audience pressure is a major obstacle to artistic renewal in programming. However, specific characteristics of the local community (e.g., openness to risk) moderate the negative effect of market pressures on modern and contemporary programming strategies. In addition, politicians do not counteract audience preferences for conservative artistic choices: public funding does not stimulate the programming of modern and contemporary music, and only changes in local government will increase the likelihood that an opera house will commit to artistic development of the field.