A friend told me a story recently that made my blood boil. She went to her first opera — La Bohème at the Sydney Opera House — wearing nice jeans and a silk top. During interval, a woman in the row behind leaned forward and said, loud enough for several people to hear, “I didn’t realise they’d stopped enforcing a dress code.”

My friend hasn’t been back. That was two years ago.

This is the problem with opera snobbery. Not the theoretical, abstract problem that arts administrators discuss at conferences. The real, concrete problem: we are actively driving people away from something wonderful because a subset of the existing audience has decided they own the experience.

It’s Not About the Music

Let me be clear about what I mean by snobbery. I’m not talking about having high standards for performance quality. I’m not talking about preferring Callas to Netrebko, or arguing about whether Regietheater has gone too far. Those are opinions, and the opera world thrives on them.

I’m talking about the gatekeeping. The social signalling. The unspoken (and sometimes very spoken) rules about who belongs at the opera and who doesn’t.

It shows up in predictable ways. The sidelong glance at someone’s outfit. The audible tut when someone claps between movements. The condescending explanation of plot points that no one asked for. The assumption that if you’re young, or casually dressed, or from a non-European background, you must be at your first opera and need educating.

The Dress Code Myth

Can we talk about the dress code thing? Because it comes up constantly and it drives me insane.

There is no dress code at Opera Australia performances. There hasn’t been for decades. The company’s website explicitly says “there is no dress code” and encourages people to “wear whatever makes you comfortable.” This is true of virtually every major opera company in the world.

And yet. AND YET. A vocal minority of attendees act as though black tie is mandatory and anyone in denim is committing an act of cultural vandalism.

I’ve sung in the chorus wearing a Renaissance gown and a blonde wig while people in the audience wore everything from evening gowns to cargo shorts. Trust me — the singers don’t care what you’re wearing. They care whether you’re engaged with the performance. An audience member in a hoodie who’s completely absorbed in the music is infinitely preferable to someone in Armani who’s checking their phone.

The Knowledge Gatekeeping

This one is subtler but equally damaging. It’s the assumption that you need extensive prior knowledge to attend opera. That you should have read the libretto beforehand. That you should know who Puccini is and when he lived and which operas he wrote and in what order.

You don’t need to know any of that. You need a ticket and a willingness to sit and listen. That’s it. Opera was popular entertainment for centuries — the Netflix of its day. The idea that it requires academic preparation is a relatively modern invention, and it’s wrong.

I’ve seen first-time operagoers weep during “Che gelida manina” without having any idea what the words mean, because the emotional communication of a great voice transcends language. That’s what opera does. It doesn’t require a prerequisite.

The Real-World Consequences

Opera audiences in Australia are ageing. This isn’t a secret — it’s a well-documented crisis that every company is grappling with. The median age of the opera audience is north of 60, and the pipeline of younger attendees isn’t strong enough to replace them.

There are many reasons for this — cost, competing entertainment options, changing cultural habits. But snobbery is absolutely one of them. Research from the Australia Council for the Arts consistently shows that “not feeling welcome” and “not feeling like it’s for people like me” are among the top barriers to arts attendance. We can pour money into marketing and outreach, but if new audiences arrive and feel judged, we’ve wasted every dollar.

It Happens Online Too

The snobbery isn’t confined to the auditorium. Online opera communities can be cesspools of gatekeeping. Post a comment saying you enjoyed a performance, and someone will materialise to explain why your enjoyment was misguided because the soprano’s Italian diction was subpar or the director made questionable choices in Act II.

Social media opera discourse is dominated by a type of fan who treats knowledge as a weapon rather than something to share. They’re not trying to help newcomers appreciate the art form. They’re performing their own expertise. And it’s exhausting even for those of us who’ve been around for years. Imagine how it feels for someone just discovering opera.

What We Can Do

If you’re a regular operagoer, here’s what I’d ask of you:

Welcome newcomers warmly. If someone near you seems unsure about when to clap or how to use the surtitles, offer a friendly word. Not a lecture. A word.

Drop the dress code policing. What someone wears to the opera is none of your business.

Share your enthusiasm, not your superiority. There’s a world of difference between “Oh, you’ll love this — the duet in Act II is incredible” and “Well, of course, if you’d seen the 1987 Zeffirelli production, you’d understand why this staging is problematic.”

Remember your first time. You weren’t born knowing what a cabaletta is. Someone, somewhere, gave you a chance to fall in love with this art form. Pay it forward.

Opera doesn’t have an audience problem. It has a hospitality problem. And every single one of us can help fix it.