Opera Philadelphia cuts all tickets to $11 in ‘pick your price’ model, hoping to widen audience

Opera Philadelphia is lowering all tickets to $11 under new general director Anthony Roth Costanzo, establishing a “pick your price” model aimed at widening the company’s audience.

Costanzo announced Tuesday the company has raised $7 million since June 1 when he replaced David Devan, who retired after 13 seasons. The money addressed debt and enabled the new model, in which people can pay more than the minimum if they want to.

“This is chapter one of a long-term turnaround story,” Costanzo said. “Creating a new place for opera in our current time requires risk. It doesn’t require doubling down on safe choices, and that’s going to mean that we have to enable failure.”

Costanzo, a 42-year-old countertenor with an active singing career on the world’s top stages, took over ahead of a 2024-25 season trimmed to nine performances, down from 30 in 2018-19, the last season before the coronavirus pandemic, and 16 in 2022-23. Tickets for this season originally were priced at $30-$300.

“Every dollar you spend over $11 helps to not only support the opera, but support the people who want to come to the opera,” Costanzo said. “It will certainly represent a decrease in income from ticket sales. But it will represent an increase in contributed revenue and I believe also in the future in foundation revenue and hopefully corporate revenue.”

Opera Philadelphia sold 14,211 tickets last season at an average of $85.77, resulting in 13% of the company’s revenue. In the 2022-23 season, 17,464 tickets were sold at an average of $78.32, also bringing in 13% of revenue.

This season’s schedule at the Academy of Music, which has about 1,800 full-view seats, includes three performances of Missy Mazzoli’s “The Listeners” beginning with its U.S. premiere on Sept. 25, two performances Joseph Bologne’s “The Anonymous Lover” starting Jan. 31 and four performances of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” opening April 25. The company scrapped its innovative season-opening festival as part of budget cutting.

Costanzo spoke with Henry Timms, the outgoing president of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which since 2022 has relied on a choose-what-you-pay model starting at $5 for many events during its “Summer for the City” schedule.

Costanzo said the past model had been predicated on including popular titles such as Bizet’s “Carmen,” intended to spur ticket sales.

“We market to the people who can afford $150 tickets. That changes the feel of the marketing. It changes the demographics of who we market to and where we market,” Costanzo said. “Ticket price and selling tickets becomes a real focal point of how we create art form in our time. And I think that’s a shame. I think it limits us and hinders innovation and progress.”