OPERA America Releases 2025 Annual Field Report
By Afton MarkayOPERA America’s Annual Field Report for 2025 has been published.
The data in the report is drawn from the fiscal year 2024 data submitted by OPERA America’s Professional Company Members in the annual Professional Opera Survey administered by SMU Data Arts. The report is designed to provide leaders in the field with a comprehensive overview of the financial health and productivity of opera companies in North America.
Below are the key findings.
Performance Activity in 2023–24
- Distinct Titles (247; +4 percent)
- Productions (449; -4 percent)
- Performances (1,762; +2 percent)
- Venues (282; +2 percent
- North American Premieres (44; +7 percent)
Top 5 Most-Produced North American Titles
- “Amahl and the Night Visitors” (Menotti)
- “Florencia en el Amazonas” (Catán/Fuentes-Berain)
- “Book of Mountains and Seas” (Huang Ruo)
- “Scalia/Ginsburg” (Wang)
- “Glory Denied” (Cipullo/Philpott)
Top 5 Most-Produced Titles
- “La bohème” (Puccini/Giacosa/Illica)
- “Carmen” (Bizet/Meilhac/Halévy)
- “Madama Butterfly” (Puccini/Giacosa/Illica)
- “The Barber of Seville” (Rossini/Sterbini)
- “Don Giovanni” (Mozart/Da Ponte)
- “La traviata” (Verdi/Piave)
Understanding Opera’s New Audiences
In recent years, North American opera companies have excelled at attracting new audiences. Now, the charge is to foster an environment that encourages return and loyal operagoers.
In 2024, OPERA America published “Understanding Opera’s New Audiences,” a national study of the motivations, experiences, and barriers faced by first-timers. OPERA America has continued to research this topic in partnership with the Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation. In May 2025, they published the resource guide, “Engaging Opera’s New Audiences,” which offers a selection of tactical ideas and a framework for implementation based around nine prevailing hypotheses:
Newcomers will be more likely to return if
- Going to the opera is a one-of-a-kind experience that is bigger than just the performance
- Performances are fun, social, and part of their evening (but not their entire evening)
- They are offered a less expensive point of repeat entry
- The cost of a ticket delivers high value by their standards
- They build an appetite for opera by engaging with digital recordings before and after performances
- They receive communications that are tailored to them
- They can understand what’s happening on stage from beginning to end
- They have a frictionless experience from ticket purchase to post-show email
- They can enjoy their experience without feeling they lack enough knowledge
Analyzing Opera’s New Audiences
- Opera recordings play an important role in introducing newcomers to the art form and in bookending their live attendance
- Newcomers who bought the most expensive tickets were substantially more likely to return one year later
Financial
OPERA America entered its 2025 fiscal year with concerns of rising costs and stagnating revenue that challenge opera companies nationwide. Despite that, the organization concluded its year with results that were stronger than anticipated.
- The year closed with a positive change in net assets of nearly $450,000
- Institutional support saw gains in FY2025, driven by new foundation relationships and various channels of government revenue including the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts
- The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation made a first-time, $500,000 grant to OPERA America to build upon its 2024 new opera audience research with the development of toolkits, publications, webinars, and new grantmaking.
In 2024, opera companies relied on a combination of earned revenue and contributed revenue. The former includes box office receipts, investment income, and other sources of revenue such as program enrollment fees and production rental fees. Contributed revenue includes gifts from individuals, special events, institutions, and other sources.
Read Related Stories
