I’m going to quote a number that should concern everyone who cares about the future of opera in Australia: $449. That’s the price of a premium seat at Opera Australia’s 2025 Aida at the Sydney Opera House. Four hundred and forty-nine dollars. For one ticket. For one evening.

Now, before the “opera has always been expensive” crowd gets going — yes, I know. I was in the chorus for fifteen years. I’m aware of what it costs to stage a grand opera with a full orchestra, a chorus of fifty, soloists, sets, costumes, technical crew, and a venue that costs a fortune to operate. The economics of opera are genuinely brutal.

But here’s the thing: if we keep pricing out everyone under forty, there won’t be an audience left to sell expensive tickets to in twenty years.

The Numbers Are Stark

According to data from Live Performance Australia, the median age of opera audiences in Australia has been rising steadily for two decades. It now sits somewhere in the mid-sixties. The under-30 demographic has been shrinking as a proportion of total opera attendance for years.

This isn’t because young people don’t like opera. Every time I meet someone in their twenties who’s been to their first opera, they’re buzzing about it. The problem isn’t interest — it’s access. When you’re paying Sydney rent, servicing a HECS debt, and trying to save for a house deposit that looks more fictional by the year, $200 for a midrange opera ticket isn’t just expensive. It’s impossible.

What Companies Are Doing (And What They’re Not)

To be fair, Opera Australia has made some efforts. Their under-30 ticket program offers significant discounts, and their $30 tickets for final dress rehearsals have been popular. The Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour productions have a more accessible price range, partly because the outdoor venue has more seats.

Victorian Opera, to their credit, has kept their ticket prices lower across the board. You can see a mainstage Victorian Opera production for $50-$80, which is genuinely reasonable. West Australian Opera and Opera Queensland similarly maintain more accessible pricing, though they also have smaller budgets and less expensive venues.

But discount programs, while welcome, aren’t the same as structural affordability. A few hundred $30 tickets for under-30s doesn’t change the fundamental perception that opera is for wealthy older people. And perception drives behaviour.

The Comparison Problem

Young Australians have more entertainment options than any previous generation, and most of them are cheap or free. You can stream entire operas on YouTube. You can watch the Met’s HD broadcasts for the price of a cinema ticket. Spotify has every recording ever made, basically. A music festival weekend pass costs less than two opera tickets.

I’m not saying opera should compete with Netflix on price. But it needs to compete on perceived value. A twenty-five-year-old will happily spend $150 on a concert ticket for an artist they love, because they perceive that as a reasonable exchange of money for experience. Opera needs to be in that conversation, and right now, for most young people, it’s not even on the radar.

What I’d Actually Do

Here’s my unsolicited strategy, drawn from fifteen years of watching this from the inside:

1. A proper under-35 subscription tier. Not discount codes buried on a website. A genuine, prominently marketed subscription package for young audiences at $35-50 per ticket. Yes, this costs revenue in the short term. It builds an audience for the long term. Every major symphony orchestra in the world has figured this out. Opera needs to catch up.

2. Dynamic pricing that actually works. There are seats at every performance that will go unsold. Fill them with young people at low prices rather than leaving them empty. An empty seat generates zero revenue and zero future audience members.

3. More accessible venues. Not everything needs to be in the Sydney Opera House. Smaller, grittier venues in different parts of the city can reach different audiences. The indie opera scene in Melbourne has proven this — companies like Melbourne Opera and Lyric Opera of Melbourne regularly draw younger audiences in non-traditional spaces.

4. Content that connects. This loops back to my argument about programming Australian work. You know what would get a twenty-five-year-old through the door? An opera about something they recognise — their world, their stories, their language. Not another La Boheme, no matter how good it is.

5. Lower the formality barrier. Dress codes, interval champagne, program notes written in academic prose — these are signals that say “this isn’t for you” to anyone who didn’t grow up going to the opera. Relax. Let people wear jeans. Sell beer. Write program notes in plain English. The art speaks for itself.

The Clock Is Ticking

I don’t say this to be dramatic (well, maybe a little — I did spend fifteen years on an opera stage). But the audience demographics in Australian opera are a slow-moving crisis. Every year the median age ticks up. Every year the under-30 cohort shrinks. And every year, the companies respond with the same mix of incremental discounts and hand-wringing.

Opera survived the Black Death, two world wars, the invention of cinema, and the arrival of television. It can survive the affordability crisis. But only if the companies treat it as the existential threat it actually is.

— Margot