At half past ten on a Friday night, the foyer of the Teatro Aurelia is full of people who do not look like opera-goers, or at least not like the opera-goers of popular imagination. There are trainers, tote bags and at least one skateboard propped against a marble column. A queue has formed at the bar, which is serving beer in plastic cups. In half an hour, most of these people will be watching a full performance of a Verdi opera, and most of them will stay until the end.
The late-night series at this nineteenth-century house in northern Italy began three seasons ago as an experiment by its general director, Chiara Benvenuti-Oduya, who was alarmed to discover that the average age of her subscribers was sixty-eight. Rather than commission new work aimed at younger audiences or stage opera in nightclubs, she made a more modest bet: the same productions, the same singers, the same orchestra, performed later, with cheaper tickets and considerably less ceremony.
The rules are simple. Standing tickets cost twelve euros, roughly the price of a cocktail in the surrounding bars. Seated tickets for under-thirties cost twenty. Performances begin at eleven, after the regular audience has gone home, and before each one a member of the company, sometimes a singer, sometimes a stagehand, spends five minutes explaining the story in plain Italian and occasionally in English. There are no disapproving glances at anyone who applauds in the wrong place.
Taking the audience seriously
The results have startled even the Aurelia's own staff. Under-thirty attendance has more than doubled, and the late performances routinely sell out. More surprising is what happens next: nearly a third of the late-night audience has since bought tickets for a regular evening performance. Benvenuti-Oduya attributes this to an absence of condescension. The productions are not simplified or shortened, and the audience, she says, can tell the difference between being welcomed and being managed.
Young people are not afraid of opera. They are afraid of being made to feel stupid. Remove that, and the music does everything else.
The singers were initially sceptical, worried that a late-night crowd would be restless or distracted. Most now describe the late shows as their favourite performances of the week. The baritone Emeka Stanić, who has sung in the series since its first season, says the young audience reacts with a directness he rarely encounters at gala evenings. They gasp at the betrayals, laugh at the jokes and, during one memorable 'Tosca', booed the villain so enthusiastically that he took an extra bow.
The model is not without critics. Some long-standing patrons have complained that the late-night shows cheapen the house, and a few donors have threatened to withdraw support. Benvenuti-Oduya has met most of them personally, often bringing them to a late performance to see the audience for themselves. Several have since become enthusiastic advocates. One, a retired banker in his eighties, now attends every Friday and has been spotted, on more than one occasion, in trainers.
Other houses are watching closely. Delegations from Lyon, Vienna and Hamburg have visited to study the series, and at least two are preparing their own versions. Benvenuti-Oduya is happy to share the details, though she warns that the format matters less than the attitude. Just after one in the morning, as the curtain falls on the final act, the standing section erupts. Somewhere near the back, the skateboarder is on his feet, shouting for more.
