At a recent Detroit Opera performance of Così fan tutte, Mozart’s comedy veered into an audience partici­pation experience, Rocky Horror-style, when some lis­teners turned on Don Alfonso with calls of “Shame on you!” and “Justice for Despina!” The production, directed by Yuval Sharon, reimagines Don Alfonso as a misogynis­tic tech CEO and the opera as a product launch for his com­pany’s newest AI creation: humanoid robots that serve as loyal female companions. When the microphone-wielding Don fielded ques­tions from planted audience members in the theater aisles, actual patrons took this as their cue.

This staging concept is one of numerous examples of how opera companies are updating the inherited rep­ertoire to remain attractive to new and returning audi­ences alike. OPERA America’s recent Understanding Opera’s New Audiences report found that well-known titles — blue-chip classics like Carmen and Madama Butterfly as well as newer works with famous titles like The Shining (Paul Moravec, composer; Mark Campbell, librettist) or Alice in Wonderland (Unsuk Chin, composer; Unsuk Chin and David Henry Hwang, libret­tists) — stand the best chance of both attracting newcom­ers and bringing them back to the opera.

“It makes intuitive sense,” says Patty Isacson Sabee, Detroit Opera’s president and CEO. “If you’re going to buy an opera ticket, which is often pricey, you want to go to something where you already know the brand. You’ve got some sense that what you’re going to see has already been labeled good or worthy.”

A more nuanced reading of the New Audiences data reveals that other aspects of an opera, such as whether it deals with contemporary issues, is written in under­standable language, or is created by living creators, are also motivating factors for a variety of attendees to return to the opera after that first visit. And in the case of inherited repertoire, in par­ticular, attendees expressed a strong desire for variety and new experiences with each production, rather than recy­cled traditional productions of the same operas season after season.

“I’ve heard from quite a few companies that it’s import­ant to take a ‘new works’ approach to the inherited repertoire,” says Lily Kass, scholar in residence at Opera Philadelphia, who has been engaged by OPERA America to investigate how opera com­panies are approaching the inherited repertoire as a follow-up to the Understand­ing Opera’s New Audiences report. “This means not tak­ing the inherited repertoire for granted. It’s not saying, ‘Everyone knows Carmen,’ but starting from the beginning: What is Carmen about? What will connect Carmen to cur­rent audiences?”

Kass’ probing has identi­fied a variety of ways opera companies are trying to reimagine and remix inher­ited repertoire to appeal to new and returning audi­ences alike. These remixes can involve changes to the opera itself in the form of reordering scenes, shorten­ing the runtime, or adjusting the plot to address local or contemporary issues. Other updates are purely dramatur­gical — fresh interpretations that invite attendees to expe­rience an opera in a whole new light. Other changes still have involved more “front-of-house” adjustments like making performances immersive and using trans­lations with a more modern feel. Many companies of all sizes have experimented with various combinations of these sorts of updates, and while there is no one-size-fits-all strategy to updating the inherited rep­ertoire, perhaps the most essential takeaway is that companies must continue to experiment to keep produc­tions attractive enough for attendees to return.

Hit Refresh

Among Detroit Opera’s AI-themed Così attendees, 31% were new-to-file patrons, that is, completely new to the company, meaning that a sig­nificant majority were return attendees. “It’s Mozart, but it sounds like something that might be kind of cool, or just more relevant,” Sabee says, attributing the produc­tion’s success to Sharon’s reimagined plot. This num­ber was lower than that of its season opener, a more tradi­tional staging of La traviata, which attracted 48% new-to-file attendees. It’s worth noting that Così attracted a more diverse audience. “The Così new-to-files had a more varied range of incomes, were more diverse, and had a broader education range,” Sabee says. “There were more singles, and it was our largest African American audience of the season.”

Retooling an opera’s plot can refresh the work for those who have already seen histor­ically “accurate” productions of the opera, and it can also help update aspects of the inherited repertoire that rub against modern sensibilities. Madama Butterfly, for exam­ple, remains one of the most recognizable operatic titles to this day, but the opera’s story has faced increasing scrutiny due to the original opera’s stereotypical portrayals of Asian cultures.

Several productions have sprung to life in recent years, many with Asian directors and creators at the helm to help update the opera’s moral­ity and stylings to better align with 21st-century ideas and speak to current issues. Director Amon Miyamoto’s production in 2023 at San Francisco Opera, for example, added pantomimed scenes for Butterfly and Pinkerton’s son, Trouble, to reorient the opera to the child’s perspec­tive. Cincinnati Opera, like Detroit, chose to stage the opera through a technological lens, setting the action within a virtual reality world that Pinkerton visited through VR goggles.

Cincinnati’s production was reprised in March at Pittsburgh Opera, where, in addition to bringing in numerous first-time attend­ees, it had the third highest single-ticket sales since 2008. “Madama Butterfly will always bring in a large number of patrons, just like Carmen and The Magic Flute,” says Chris Cox, director of marketing and communications at Pittsburgh Opera. “It’s tough to know how much is the title versus the production itself,” he adds.

Short(er) Scores

Nashville Opera’s April production of Lucia di Lammermoor, meanwhile, involved some “haircuts” — strategic cuts to shorten the score — to make the work more digestible for repeat attendees looking for enter­tainment options that can fit into an evening on the town. “Director John Hoomes trimmed some of the repeats and rearranged it a little bit to turn it into a two-act structure that had a more cinematic flow,” says Will Shutes, Nashville’s director of marketing and PR, explaining that they ended the opera with the famous mad scene.

Additionally, Heartbeat Opera in New York City staged an English translation of Salome — almost concurrently with the Metropolitan Opera’s large-scale production, discussed below — reimagining the production’s musical score from the ground up in addition to trimming the opera to around 90 minutes. The Brooklyn-based composer Dan Schlosberg rearranged Richard Strauss’ score for eight clarinetists playing a total of 28 instruments and two percussionists. The company also casts creatively, selecting singers based on whether they fit the character rather than simply vocal fach.

This radical departure didn’t go unnoticed. Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review, notes that “if it’s sheer numbers you’re looking for, the Metropolitan Opera is presenting a new, full-scale production of Salome this spring. We go to Heartbeat, though, to be mere feet from the performers, with stagings that lucidly connect chestnuts to contemporary issues.”

Other companies are taking similar or greater liberties with operatic librettos. Opera Memphis’ supertitles for the baroque opera La Calisto in May used an English vernacular that helped attendees connect with this hundreds-of-years-old story through humor and a playful irreverence. One performance also included an immersive karaoke session with historical instruments for attendees after the performance, coining the term “Baroquaoke” in the process. (Chappell Roan’s famous “Pink Pony Club” with baroque guitar proved a highlight.)

Regional Accents

To better connect with its local roots, Opera Memphis staged a Bohème set on Beale Street last season. The com­pany is far from alone in such efforts. Across the state, Nashville Opera added a touch of country twang to Hoomes’ production of Carmen last September, when set changes were accompanied by Miles Aubrey, a Nashville sing­er-guitarist who dressed up as a troubadour and sere­naded the audience with the country ballad “El Paso” and an electric guitar fantasy on Carmen themes.

Localizing productions through winks and nods to an area’s geography or his­tory has become a common way for companies to connect historic operas to their pres­ent circumstances. Another example: In honor of its home city, the Florentine Opera last year staged a La bohème set in Milwaukee’s historic African American neighbor­hood of Bronzeville during the 1940s, a community dam­aged during urbanization. While Puccini’s score went untouched, the company hired a dramaturg who is an expert on Brownsville his­tory, which Maggey Oplinger, general director and CEO of the Florentine Opera, says “allowed us to honor the orig­inal spirit of the story while tying it to a local history of creativity, resilience, and community.” Oplinger adds that the company embraces the fact that “heritage hits” like La bohème are draws for newcomers and returning attendees alike. “But we also believe that how you pres­ent these works matters,” she says. This means “keeping the heart of the piece intact while making it deeply relevant to today’s audiences.”

A local reviewer noted that the opera felt “perfectly at home,” and responses to post-show surveys and on social media were largely positive. As Kass notes, for repeat attendees and newcomers alike, “opera famously presents a vari­ety of barriers to entry to audiences, and capitalizing on local history gives audi­ences a powerful point of connection, even before they hear the music or absorb the opera’s story.”

Flash and Substance

While many of these updates involve active splicing or seri­ous modification, there are plenty of examples to the contrary. Refreshing a pro­duction doesn’t need to focus on the bells and whistles or the shock value of combin­ing modern elements with a historical work. A qual­ity reinterpretation that activates an opera’s sym­bols and myths in a creative, compelling way can also be an effective way to cre­ate intrigue around a piece of inherited repertoire, and draw new attendees and repeat attendees alike.

This can mean a tradi­tional production, like Detroit Opera’s above-mentioned La traviata. Or, it can mean a more creative, complex stag­ing, as with the Metropolitan Opera’s recent production of The Magic Flute. That pro­duction explored contrasts of light and shadow and used a live projection of an actor’s hands as he wrote staging directions, while the Met’s reinterpretation of Salome saw Salome interacting with younger versions of herself to spotlight her childhood abuse and reveal how it continues to impact her adult life.

When Portland Opera staged Falstaff in May, the libretto and score remained untouched, but the produc­tion emphasized the opera’s class disparities as a theme through costuming and a 1980s country club theme and other subtle changes. Plus, the company invited attendees to dress in their favorite 80s regalia. Even these benign changes pro­vided enough of a hook to help draw new-to-file and return attendees alike, with 26% purchasing a ticket for their first time and 74% arriving as repeat customers.

“I’ve never seen so much neon polyester in my life,” says Christy McGrew, the company’s senior manager of sales and audience develop­ment. “A lot of our younger folks attend for the costume promotions — it’s a new and unique experience for them and hopefully they develop a newfound love of opera, or at least a taste for attending reg­ularly in wacky outfits.

“Nationally, everybody is seeing really high new-to-file numbers,” she continues. “It’s getting them to come back. You have to make sure that their experience is entertain­ing but also has something a little extra with it.”

Additional reporting by Opera America Magazine Editor Jeremy Reynolds.