PHILADELPHIA — Anthony Roth Costanzo, the countertenor who popularized $11 opera tickets, is steering Opera Philadelphia into a 50th anniversary season he describes as “opera, but different.” The program blends drama, interdisciplinary storytelling and formal experimentation, aiming to surprise audiences while addressing a precarious financial footing that nearly derailed the company last year.
Opening night this fall will feature Gioachino Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, but in a setting far from tradition. Director Damiano Michieletto relocates the action from an inn to an art gallery where portraits come alive and sing, signaling Costanzo’s intent to reframe familiar operatic materials. The rest of the season follows with a similarly adventurous arc: a multimedia piece conceived by playwright Sarah Ruhl and set to music by Antonio Vivaldi, including The Seasons, in which Costanzo also appears; a world premiere whose libretto is by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson and whose score is by ten different composers; another new opera by Gregory Spears featuring the chorus as the central force; and a vaudeville-inspired interpretation of a Langston Hughes poem by bass-baritone Davóne Tines.
“As I put all of the pieces together, I thought, how can I encapsulate this in just a few simple words,” Costanzo said. “And what occurred to me was: ‘Opera, but different.’ And that is the slogan of the season.” The approach comes after a fraught period for the company. When Costanzo took the helm, Opera Philadelphia faced the specter of bankruptcy and needed to raise roughly $4 million quickly to stay afloat. The new leadership also sought a broader, more inclusive audience.
The answer included a fundraising-driven pricing strategy that stunned the industry: a “pick your price” policy allowing tickets to be purchased for any seat starting at $11. The policy did not replace higher-priced options or subscriptions; donors could still choose higher price points or add gifts. Costanzo has described the plan as a venture-capital mindset: spend money to generate more revenue and goodwill, with the understanding that the old pricing structure would have generated only about 8% of the needed revenue. The gamble paid off. Within months, Opera Philadelphia raised about $7 million in donations, sufficient to retire the company’s debt and stabilize operations. When tickets went on sale for the 2024–25 season, all three operas sold out within three weeks, and the season finished with a surplus of roughly $2.4 million.
Corrado Rovaris, Opera Philadelphia’s longtime music director, led the season-opening performance last fall of Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners, a recent work receiving its U.S. premiere. He recalled a palpable energy in a full house, with audiences responding with enthusiasm that was “beautiful and moving.” The box office results reinforced Costanzo’s belief that the new pricing approach could attract a broader audience. In one case study highlighted by the company, two-thirds of those who chose the pick-your-price option had never bought tickets to Opera Philadelphia before, and most were under 45 years old. The pattern appeared again this season, suggesting the strategy’s potential to enlarge the organization’s core audience while maintaining artistic ambition.
The financial turnaround and audience growth have drawn attention across the field. Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, praised Opera Philadelphia’s bold experiment but cautioned that it remains too early to determine long-term outcomes. He noted that the learning from the initiative could prove valuable not only to the company but to the wider field, even if it takes a couple of years to see whether the new audience becomes a durable public constituency or simply a temporary response to a low price.
The shift comes as the company expands its offerings in the new season, doubling the number of performances from the prior year. Yet even as the calendar grows more ambitious, the budget remains lean compared with a peak period in 2017, when Opera Philadelphia launched an adventurous festival format that featured multiple works in performance over a two-week span. Costanzo, who has described his job as a blend of programming and financial risk-taking, says the goal is to sustain a company that can take chances while remaining financially viable for the long term.
The 50th-anniversary program also includes Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners, which Rovaris led as part of the season’s reopening narrative and which critics described as a watershed moment for the company’s aesthetic direction. The production’s U.S. premiere served as a reminder of the company’s willingness to premiere contemporary works alongside new commissions and reimagined classics. Audience members cited the immersive, multimedia approach as emblematic of Opera Philadelphia’s ongoing commitment to contemporary voices and innovative staging.
Costanzo’s plans also reflect a broader conference of collaboration. The season’s pieces feature interdisciplinary artists, modern choreography, and contemporary libretto writing, signaling a shift toward operatic storytelling that foregrounds narrative complexity and emotional breadth. In describing the opening night’s gallery setting and the live portraits, Costanzo underscored the act of collaboration as essential to the company’s mission: “It’s dramatic, it’s cathartic, it’s collaborative in interdisciplinary ways.” He said the season’s diversity of voices and formats is designed to invite new audiences without sacrificing the operatic core.
Industry observers note that the financial strategy has real implications for accessibility in the arts. Helen Little, an opera enthusiast from New York City who has followed Costanzo’s pricing experiments, called the approach “brilliant” for its potential to broaden the demographic reach and reduce anxiety about price during a first visit. “The whole point is to spread goodwill, bring in new people, bring in young people, people who have never been to an opera,” she said, adding that goodwill has value beyond ticket revenue alone.
As Opera Philadelphia advances, the company will monitor how the new audiences translate into sustained engagement. Two-thirds of first-time buyers in the pick-your-price program remained under 45, and the organization reported similar demographics among this season’s purchasers. Costanzo has repeatedly framed the price strategy as a long-term experiment designed to expand the company’s footprint while maintaining the quality and ambition that have defined its century-spanning tradition.
The season’s repertoire, with its mix of classic Rossini, contemporary new works and cross-disciplinary collaborations, exemplifies Costanzo’s belief that opera can be a living, evolving art form. While the path forward involves continued fundraising and careful audience development, Opera Philadelphia appears committed to balancing accessibility with experimentation, a balance that will shape the company’s trajectory well beyond its 50th year.