Welcome back to the series of blog posts where I have weird and pointless thoughts about horror, sci-fi, and dystopia in opera, or the lack thereof. Last time, I suggested that elitism does NOT explain the lack of these genres in opera, and I maintain this position. That may be a controversial opinion, so I want to spend this shorter post unpacking my exact thought process behind this… with STATISTICS (kind of).
In the 2010s, Young Adult literature (YA lit) saw a humongous increase in dystopian works, thanks to mega-hits like The Hunger Games. Most of these works have sci-fi settings or hints of the horror genre, so from this, we could guess that our genres of concern are popular among younger audiences (Let’s say ages 13-30). The general accepted truth is that only old rich white men (let’s say ages 60+) go to the opera. Therefore, old white men don’t like our genres of concern, so they don’t appear in opera. Right?
The problem with this line of thinking is that there aren’t many statistics backing it up. A 2017 survey from the National Endowment of the Arts showed that the age ranges of those who attended arts events looked like this:
AGE
18 – 24
25 – 34
35 – 44
45 – 54
55 – 64
65 – 74
75+
% of Population
12.0
17.8
16.2
16.9
16.9
11.9
8.1
Granted, this survey is old, and it accounts for attendance of all arts events, not just opera. But still, it doesn’t seem to support the idea that only old people visit the opera house. In fact, the percentage of people attending arts events seems to decrease once you get to a certain age.
On the flip side, a 2013 survey performed by Mark Niemann-Ross for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America suggests that science-fiction readers air on the wealthy side. Seventy-two percent of the sci-fi readers in the sample made more than $50k annually, and a majority of them made more than $80k. We know for a fact that operas take a lot of money to make, and that major donors for operas have to make a lot of money. So, shouldn’t this suggest that many opera-donors have an interest in sci-fi?
To be fair, these surveys are old, and surveys aren’t the best way of gathering data anyways. But hopefully, they illustrate the idea that stereotypes aren’t always reliable. I generally think that stereotypes have a bit of truth in them, or at least they originate from some perceived truths. Still, I don’t think we can accept stereotypes like “only old people go to the opera” or “only young folk like sci-fi/horror/dystopia.” Maybe that seems obvious, but I still think it’s worth making clear.
So back to the original question: why don’t our holy trinity of genres appear in opera? Thus far, I’ve suggested chronology, medium, and money as potential explanations, and I have one more potential explanation to add to the list. Look forward to the final post in this series soon! (Hopefully…)