For years, arts organizations have asked how to attract younger audiences. The Lyric Opera of Chicago should be asking a different question: Why don’t more people feel that they belong there?
This isn’t a criticism of artistic quality. The Lyric continues to produce excellent work under difficult circumstances. Will Liverman’s “The Factotum” brilliantly reimagined Gioachino Rossini in a contemporary Black Chicago barbershop. During the pandemic, the company even transformed Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle into an abbreviated drive-thru experience in a parking garage.
The flashes of innovation are there. What is missing is sustained community.
Too often, the Lyric still feels built around the old “golden temple” model of opera: Produce excellent performances, raise money from major donors, and assume audiences will somehow appear and remain loyal.
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It doesn’t work that way anymore.
My husband and I have attended opera around the country for decades. In Pittsburgh, I received a personal invitation to meet fellow visitors during intermission. Houston Grand Opera’s LGBTQ+ Overture program intentionally builds relationships among newcomers, subscribers and donors. Nashville Opera hosts date nights specifically designed for younger patrons. Long Beach Opera stages immersive events that turn performances into shared experiences.
These organizations understand something important: People rarely become lifelong supporters because of a single production. They become supporters because they find community.
The distinction matters. Audience members buy tickets. Stakeholders volunteer, advocate, donate, subscribe and eventually leave legacies. Cultural institutions thrive when they transform transactions into relationships.
At the Lyric, I am continually struck by how often the people sitting beside me say it is their first opera or perhaps only their second. Wonderful — but where are the mechanisms that encourage them to return? Where are the recurring social opportunities, affinity groups and pathways that convert curiosity into belonging?
Chicago possesses one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ populations, an enormous base of young professionals and countless residents who routinely spend hundreds of dollars on concerts, sporting events and immersive entertainment experiences. Young people will pay premium prices when they feel they are joining something larger than themselves. They dress for events, travel for them and build friendships around them.
Opera can offer exactly that.
Fundamentally, the absence of visible, public-facing communities within the Lyric sends an unintended message that opera remains something to attend rather than somewhere to belong.This matters artistically as well as financially.
A larger, more invested community creates economic scale. Economic scale permits longer performance runs and helps attract major international artists. Earlier generations experienced the Lyric as a destination company presenting extended runs and attracting audiences from across North America. Those ambitions should not be viewed nostalgically but also aspirationally. Audience development and artistic ambition are not competing priorities. They reinforce each other.
Viewed over a lifetime, the economics are also compelling. A young professional who contributes a modest amount annually, returns year after year and eventually becomes a subscriber, donor, volunteer or planned giver may ultimately contribute far more than any single ticket purchase suggests. Today’s first-time attendee may become tomorrow’s board member or major benefactor.
Chicago deserves a Lyric Opera that is not merely an exceptional producing organization but also an indispensable civic institution — a place where first-time attendees, longtime subscribers, LGBTQ+ audiences, students, neighborhood residents and young professionals all feel that they have found a cultural home.
The future of opera may depend less on who sings the next great aria than on who feels invited to stay after the curtain falls.
Helmut Paul is the founder of The Vanguard Initiative for Arts & Enterprise, which supports artists and organizations working at the intersection of culture, civic life and community engagement.
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