Alex Ross: uncertainty

Transcript context

…If you go to a second-tier American city — say, Washington, DC, which is by no means uneducated — and you go to the opera, what percentage of the crowd there is actually enjoying it in the sense that they are wishing it would last longer than it will? I grew up in DC, so I have some experience with this. I don’t know — it’s going to be a mix. I don’t know if I could put a percentage on it, but there are certainly quite a few people who go out of a sense of obligation. This is just the thing that they have their subscription tickets, and “The Joneses down the street are going, so we might as well go.” That’s always been a component of the American orchestral audience or the opera audience, but especially the orchestral audience in terms of these orchestras that have become real civic institutions. And certain families — wealthier families — in the city have supported them for generations. And it’s just there. It’s a fixture, and people show up without necessarily being deeply involved in it, but you need those people. You can’t have an audience — But what’s your percentage number on that? How many are having fun and they want an extra hour of Verdi or whatever they’re hearing?…

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