How to actually get people to the opera
Plus, a quick check-in on the Kennedy Center.
Hello. Since the last time we spoke, I:
Binged most of Severance (I am halfway through season two no spoilers please).
Started reading the hefty Playworld by Adam Ross.
Saw the Angela Trimbur Dance Company balletcore recital, which was everything I needed and more (if you are in New York, I highly recommend Angela’s classes; I am partial to Thirteen).
Now, the news.
Let’s check in on the Kennedy Center. Last week, musician Yasmin Williams reached out to the institution’s interim executive director, Richard Grenell, to ask two questions, in light of the fact that several artists have canceled shows and appearances at the Kennedy Center: Does Trump care? And what has actually changed when it comes to the Kennedy Center’s hiring, booking, and staffing practices? What came next will shock you… (jk it actually won’t.)
Grenell and Williams had a conversation wherein Grenell accused Williams and the musicians boycotting the Kennedy Center as just generally being anti-Republican. He then gets extremely defensive, accuses Grenell of calling him intolerant—which she never does—and then sends a lengthy response saying that the Center is in financial duress because “the programs are so woke that they haven’t made money” and “we can’t afford to pay people for fringe and niche programming that the public won’t support.” Anyway. Did you all see that earlier this year Hamilton became the fourth (and fastest) Broadway musical to ever surpass $1 billion in overall gross revenue?
What’s not doing as well financially is the Met Opera slate of contemporary works, City Journal reports. While general manager Peter Gelb previously told the New York Times that the Met was “betting big” on living composers, it seems like the oldies are far outselling them. The author of this City Journal report, however, seems more politically aligned with Grenell above—and while the numbers don’t show contemporary operas outperforming traditional options by any stretch of the imagination I’ll contend that we’re looking at this challenge entirely the wrong way. The operas themselves are often not the key factor determining whether seats are sold or not.
City Journal points out that the Met Opera hired Boston Consulting Group to get its recommendations (when I am literally here and available for consulting services…), and as a result, next year’s slate of performances will largely include such favorites as La Traviata. The 2025-2026 season will also include Eugene Onegin (I told you it was trending…) and three company premieres, including The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, based on the Michael Chabon novel, El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego by American composer Gabriela Lena Frank, and Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, which focuses on the aftermath of a school shooting. Honesty—it sounds like a strong season.
So what could the Met be doing differently? Here is one specific recommendation: It needs to host more Fridays Under 40 parties because they sell out too fast!!!! I got tickets to see Salome (which is a very accessible 110 minute program) in a few weeks back in December, and the Fridays Under 40 seats were nearly sold out. There is a difference between striking a balance between exclusivity and simply not meeting demand…and this seems to be a clear case of the latter. I think the Met actually does quite a good job with its paid social ads, but I think it would benefit more from influencer marketing and UGC. It occasionally collaborates with Last Night at the Met—more efforts in this vein would be very wise.
Family Circle tickets for the Met are typically quite reasonably priced (sub $30 or $40), but sometimes I wonder how well known that fact is.
Remember how Opera Philadelphia made its entire season pick-your-price, with prices starting at $11? General director and president director Anthony Roth Costanzo told The Times that decision made it “the only company in America to sell out their entire season,” with 67% of ticket-buyers first-time buyers, 69% under the age of 45, 30% people of color, and 50% from buyers whose household incomes are less than $90k. “We’ve changed overnight the demographic of the audience,” he says. Other changes: adding a pre-show happy hour, getting Broadway theater-style cups that allow people to bring their drinks in with them, and installing some—ahem—Instagrammable moments.
Before you point out that this probably means ticket revenue is low (it is, at 4% of total revenue), Costanzo says that’s not the point. Sold-out shows means Opera Philadelphia has to pay less for marketing, plus “it mobilizes individual donations, foundations and corporations to get on board” because it’s appealing “to sponsor this idea that art is available to everybody in Philadelphia, which is the poorest big city in America.” As a result of this move, Opera Philadelphia raised $7 million and canceled its debt. So just an idea!
The Naval Academy banned nearly 400 books from the Nimitz Library on its Annapolis campus. Titles include Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Memorializing the Holocaust : Gender, Genocide and Collective by Janet Jacobs, and an expanse of titles related to race, racism, discrimination, the LGBTQ+ experience, and feminism. As Lit Hub points out, it seems likely that “whatever person or software behind these picks was just searching for a series of words, and banning everything that came up.”
The International Booker Prize 2025 shortlist is out, and surprise! It’s full of short books, including Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes (the next title on my TBR), and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson (also on my shelf). The longest book on the shortlist—Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda—clocks in at 288 pages.
The American Library Association—the oldest and largest library association, founded in 1876—and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (a union representing more than 42,000 cultural workers) have filed a lawsuit against President Trump, DOGE, DOGE administrator Amy Gleason, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and its acting director Keith Sonderling, seeking a primary injunction to reverse the “unlawful” layoffs at that state agency and to pause any further dissolution of its powers. The suit points out that “statutorily required grants” to state libraries have already been canceled, and that “Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency, not the President and certainly not DOGE.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities is also being targeted by DOGE, with employees receiving reduction-in-force notices as of Thursday, the Washington Post reported. The NEH, which last year had a budget of $207 million in appropriations from Congress, recently canceled already-awarded grants. That money will be redirected to funding Trump’s “Garden of Heroes,” which we previously discussed.
The organization is also undergoing a reorganization to “consolidate administrative and programmatic offices to enhance efficiency and streamline functions,” acting chairman Michael McDonald said in a letter to employees. It is not yet clear how many roles will be impacted or what the changes will look like.
Is social media ruining dance? I wouldn’t put it that far, but it certainly has some negative effects. The New York Times recently wrote about Wonderbound, a Denver-based contemporary dance company that quit social media in 2022 and hasn’t looked back. The decades-old company had, like many others, engaged heavily on social media, but over time, algorithm changes seemed to produce lesser returns. Not only was engagement down, but those who interacted with Wonderbound on social media were found to not be more likely to purchase tickets or donate. Since quitting social, Wonderbound says it’s seen subscriptions rise 39% thanks to personalized email campaigns and word of mouth.
Why can social be bad for dance? Well, it can often take the attention off of the holistic art form and instead lead dancers and choreographers to create what could become viral moments. It can be a distraction in the studio, too, and exacerbate some of the existing pain points around dance, like body image issues. And the algorithm’s favoring of certain dancers or choreographers has led to somewhat of a flattening effect on the industry, as emerging talent tries to emulate what’s already popular instead of inventing new forms.
Meanwhile, the Wiener Staatsballett—the Vienna State Opera Ballet—is about to become one of the most exciting ballet companies in the world, which is also an excuse for me to go back to Vienna. The world-renowned ballerina Alessandra Ferri takes the reins as the company’s director in September, and she’s bringing in new talent. Cassandra Trenary is leaving American Ballet Theater, where she is a principal, to join Wiener Staatsballett, as are the young Portuguese couple Margarita Fernandes and António Casalinho, as well as Madison Young, who are all coming from Munich’s Bayerisches Staatsballett. Victor Caixeta will also join. The 2025/2026 program will include Alexei Ratmansky’s Kallirhoe, which ABT premiered in 2020, Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Twyla Tharp’s athletic In the Upper Room, and more selections.
There are two new documentaries showing how Ukrainian ballet dancers are coping amid the war. Takflix: Bridges of Belonging, is a 16-minute short and available to stream on Nowness. The full-length documentary The Sky Was on Fire debuted in Ukraine earlier this month and will make its U.S. debut at the Florida Film Festival; the team behind it is currently looking for a distributor.
Los Angeles’s Broad Museum has started its $100 million renovation, which intends to increase gallery space by 70%; if it all goes accordingly, it should be open for the 2028 Olympics. In New York, the Soloviev Group—one of several businesses trying to get a casino license to operate in lower Manhattan—is trying to build a Museum of Freedom and Democracy, below which would reside a 295,000-square-foot casino, which would fund the museum. If someone wrote that in a novel it would be too on the nose.
In New York City art galleries, abstraction is having a moment, ArtNews reports. Meanwhile, in Paris, figurative art dominated the recent Art Paris Fair, LeMonde reports. C’est la vie.
A billionaire is selling a Rembrandt drawing of a lion at auction to help fund the wildlife conservation of big cats, which sounds great until you remember that he’s a billionaire and therefore could likely donate a whole lot more to the cause with his own funds. ▲