Opera Philadelphia Channel logo; courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.
The Opera Philadelphia Channel is one year old and beginning Season Two. In response to the pandemic’s elimination of in person opera performances, most opera companies began to offer online content to maintain connection with their fans and provide work for as many performers as they could; these efforts were largely sporadic. Much of the content was offered for free initially, but then began to be provided on a for fee basis as more companies learned the technology for generating income from online offerings. OP took the bold step of creating a subscription-based streaming service and a coherent plan to stock the Channel with fresh, varied, and innovative content with a future role largely to be determined. COVID-19 is now diminishing as vaccination programs move forward, no longer preventing opera performances in concert halls and opera houses. This unique situation made me wonder how successful the Channel has been, what has been learned, and what will its role be going forward in “normal” times. Indeed, the future role of online offerings is now an open question for all opera companies. I had the opportunity to talk by phone about these issues with Frank Luzi, OP’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications.
What was the audience response to Season One?
I asked Mr. Luzi if he could share the results from a recent OP survey on the Channel. He reported that “for the first ‘season’ of the Channel (from our October 2020 launch through May 31, 2021) we had a total of 2,774 households engage with the Channel. That breaks down to 1,520 subscribers or Season Pass holders and 1,254 rentals. The top 3 rentals at that time were The Island We Made, La Traviata, and Save the Boys. The demographics were interesting. The channel definitely succeeded in attracting new patrons: 36% of households had never purchased anything from OP before. And the viewers were from far and wide: 49% from the Philadelphia area, 36% from the rest of the USA, 3% international, and 12% from unknown addresses. In that survey, 75% of people said they were satisfied with the channel, and 75% said the channel improved their perceptions of Opera Philadelphia as a company. The 25% who were dissatisfied were very much from the ‘I am glad you are doing this, but I just don’t enjoy streamed opera as a whole’ category.”
The survey did not collect data on age of respondents. In my experience, younger fans tend to be more receptive to opera on screens. It would be interesting to know if OP is building a younger and more diverse audience through the Channel. While the fan response has been supportive, it also remains a question whether the online content will be a success in and of itself, or primarily as a driver to engage a wider audience for Opera Philadelphia.
What has been learned beginning the Channel in a pandemic?
When I asked Mr. Luzi about lessons learned operating during the pandemic, he said, “We’ve learned that the short digital commissions are a sweet spot for us. They’ve gotten critical acclaim from the NY Times, Washington Post, and others; viewership is strong, and they attract new audiences (at least so far), and they are unique and very much on brand or in character for Opera Philadelphia, as a company that supports composers and librettists and is dedicated to new work. More of those commissions will be coming in Season Two. Meanwhile, La Voix Humaine is very much like Soldier Songs, as pieces ideal for film focused on a single singer. And the The Marraige of Figaro, like the La Traviata, keeps a foot in the ‘people still want to stream grand opera from the opera house’ category.” (For an overview of the Channel’s Season Two, see my blog report, “Opera Philadelphia’s Season 2021-2022: Opera Online Now, and In Person Coming Soon”).
He further elaborated that “In year one we did reach a very large audience outside of Philadelphia. And we found a lot of crossover between that audience and our out-of-town festival audience. So, if the festival is a way to import audiences to experience Opera Philadelphia in person, then the Channel is a way to export Opera Philadelphia to the homes of that same audience.”
Opera Philadelphia also learned that managing a streaming service in which you create new content has its own challenges. Operating outside the opera house and dealing in contracts on how long access to videos remains open are among the complicating factors. Two new productions scheduled for Season One, Glass Handel and El Cimarron, did not pan out. “Glass Handel was to be both a documentary on how the project came together as well as a concert film. As there was not a quality audio recording from the Philadelphia performances, we planned to stream the performance from New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, featuring The Knights. Members of the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra expressed their displeasure and concern over the use of the archival footage featuring another orchestra, and in the interest of resolving this, we agreed to remove the Glass Handel program. Sir Willard White withdrew from El Cimarrón for personal reasons and after exploring options to recast the film, we made the difficult decision to cancel the project. New channel programming is being developed to replace these two projects.”
Mr. Luzi also found an inspirational message in working in a pandemic. He said that his strongest remembrance of the pandemic will be the irrepressible desire, perhaps need, of Opera Philadelphia’s staff and performers to create art and to connect with its audiences; the new Channel benefitted during the pandemic as the primary outlet for that creative drive and commitment. He believes that opera will not die because the will to live is so strong. This augurs well for the Opera Philadelphia Channel itself.
What is the Opera Philadelphia Channel’s role going forward?
What’s to become of the Channel as its primary raison d’être goes away? Mr. Luzi says that the channel continues to be an experiment, exploring the art form of opera on film, much as the Opera Philadelphia festival each year explores the art form on various stages around the city. He also says some new directions are being explored. OP is also paying attention to the total package – one reason for selecting The Marriage of Figaro as this season’s grand opera for the Channel is that it is a comedy to balance the number of serious themed productions in Season One.
In its recent past, Opera Philadelphia’s new season was opened with a city-wide opera festival, last held in 2019 due to COVID-19. Mr. Luzi says that the long-term goal is to get to some form of doing both: a festival to launch each season, followed by some streaming opera in the late fall and winter months, followed by community programming and then closing with a big spring production at the Academy of Music. There is also a desire to explore how audiences can be engaged with opera on screen; remember the film/live merging in O17’s The Magic Flute? O22 is expected next September; I look forward to seeing if the Channel plays a role.
Mr. Lutz says OP will soon announce additional composers who will create digital commissions similar to the works premiered on the Channel last season (by Tyshawn Sorey (Save the Boys), Caroline Shaw (We Need to Talk), Courtney Bryan (Blessed), and others). The new works will be released in fall, winter, and spring. Already scheduled is the November 19 premiere of Taktakshoo from composer Rene Orth, a work combining “opera, dance, percussion and electronics to imagine a joyful, post-pandemic emergence”.
As greater emphasis is given to a return of staged productions performed before live audiences, there will be fewer digital productions. An area of promise for adding content will be collaborations with other opera companies across the US in producing new and sharing available content online. OPC did stream some of the Academy of Vocal Arts work this past season, and they are continuing to discuss the possibility of making the Channel a home for their work.
Opera Philadelphia will soon announce an exciting first step towards sharing or co-producing digital opera with other companies. Desert In is an eight-part opera miniseries created by Boston Lyric Opera and co-produced by Long Beach Opera. The partnership will allow OPC subscribers to view the series on BLO’s operabox.tv. Subscribers to BLO and LBO will receive access to OP’s La Voix Humaine. Critic Heidi Waleson gave Desert In a strong endorsement in her Wall Street Journal review. This new partnership launches on Friday, November 5.
Conclusion
My personal hope is that the Opera Philadelphia Channel will not only continue but will continue to blossom. I’d like to see OPC commission larger works to see what modern film technology and opera can produce together; imagine what a film version of O17’s The Trial of Elizabeth Cree might be. To this point, video has mainly aided opera by allowing a wider audience to engage the art form, with a hope of increasing season subscriptions and attendance. However, OP has revealed through the Channel that merging the art forms of film and opera enters a largely unexplored territory of new art possibilities, providing film productions for streaming and some perhaps fitting for premieres in opera halls. Nonetheless, the bottom-line is that the future of the Opera Philadelphia Channel is the same as opera itself; it will be determined by audience response. This love child of the pandemic must find Its place.
The Fan Experience: Subscriptions for the Channel can be purchased at this link. An annual subscription for the Channel is a one-time cost of $99 for the season or $9.99 per month; seven day passes, usually in the $10-20 range, are available to view individual events on the Channel. The charges are per household, and events can be viewed on any internet connected device. OP offers a 20% discount to those who purchase live and streaming subscriptions together. Navigating around the Channel is reasonably intuitive, and the video and sound quality of the events have been uniformly excellent.
Most opera companies now require vaccinations for eligible individuals and mask wearing in theaters. Both of these are optional at home, though I implore you to self-impose the vaccination requirement for everything.