Abstract:

This paper reports on a new study examining public opinions towards opera in Britain and provides data on opera's "penetration" in terms of attendances, TV viewing and home ownership of opera recordings. The new survey shows that, although opera fans are skewed towards the upmarket socio-economic groups, opera is more widely appreciated in the less prosperous sections of the public than might have been thought, and the popular media myth of "young audiences" is also firmly refuted by the age profile findings of the study. Whilst opera's "core" audience is made up of less than 1 in 20 of the British population, this research shows that there is an equal number of occasional attenders and a much larger number of "lapsed" attenders who, currently only participating vicariously in opera via TV and recordings, could well be enticed back into the opera house by wider availability and by effective marketing activity.