Enticing a Younger Crowd To Attend the Paris Opera
PARIS — The Paris Opera usually invites only journalists to the news conferences where it unveils its coming plans. But in January, as it announced a boldly ambitious 201819 season, the company brought in 200 people under the age of 28 to the event at the Palais Garnier here.
It was a dramatic way of highlighting the Paris Opera’s extraordinary success in attracting younger audiences. According to the company, it had 95,000 audience members younger than 28 last season — more than 10 percent of tickets sold and 30,000 more than just two years before.
The company, which celebrates its 350th birthday next year, is an unlikely contradiction to the worldwide trend of an aging audience at operas. The average age of an audience member in Paris is 45 — 48 for the opera, 43 for the ballet — compared with 58 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and 54 at the Staatsoper in Berlin.
Paris is not the only success story: 39 percent of those booking tickets at the Royal Opera in London are 40 or younger. But the challenge worldwide grows ever starker as companies attempt to secure audiences who are approaching opera with ever less familiarity.
When Stéphane Lissner was appointed as the Paris Opera’s general director in 2014, he set about implementing measures focused on fostering younger attendance. “The absolute enemy of any opera is routine,” said Mr. Lissner — who, for the record, is 65. “You have to find your public by taking risks.”
Building on two programs that gave discounts to young ticket buyers and bringing in new sources of donations, foundation funds and corporate sponsorship, Mr. Lissner established preview performances for people younger than 28. The tickets cost 10 euros and now account for 30,000 seats each season.
Mr. Lissner said that 56 percent of people attending these previews were first-time operagoers. On top of this, four performances each year, with inexpensive tickets, are designed for families new to the opera.
Last year Thibaud Freund, 27, and his wife, Léa Sowinski, 26, went to the opera and ballet — Paris unites the two in a single organization — five times, two of which were under-28 preview performances. They said that the company’s discount programs allowed them to attend more than they otherwise could.
Ms. Sowinski pointed to the increasing innovation of the productions, particularly for the ballet. “The sets are more modern,” she said, “and also the dances, which now often use electronic music.”
Mr. Lissner said: “What I think was a mistake at the opera was for many years to persist with a number of productions which were locked into purely vocal performance. Today’s spectators are looking for more than that. They want to experience something theatrical as well.”