The price of two tickets to the floor for Madame Butterfly by Puccini last Thursday at the Opéra de Québec? $120.
The price of two tickets to the floor for Aida of Verdi, the same evening, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York? $263.
The price of two tickets to the floor for Madame Butterfly by Puccini, last Tuesday at the Opéra de Montréal? Up to $1142…
It’s expensive in Puccini (s’cuse her)! For everything else, as the ad used to say, there is Mastercard.
No, dynamic pricing is not just a scourge that afflicts popular music concerts at the Bell Centre. This new pricing method also catapults the price of opera tickets at Place des Arts into the stratosphere.
A ticket purchased well in advance for a performance at the Opéra de Montréal obviously does not cost $591. But it was the price demanded by the Opéra de Montréal for a ticket to the floor, a week before the additional performance of Madame ButterflyMay 16.
Last fall, you could get a ticket to Giacomo Puccini’s famous opera on the balcony of Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier for $35. The price of tickets recently put on sale for The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, scheduled for September, ranges between $42 and $231. For the moment. Because the prices indicated by the Opéra de Montréal fluctuate according to the performances, the weather and, of course, the dynamic pricing that the organization itself implemented in 2019.
It is not Ticketmaster that sets the prices for this dynamic pricing, but rather the Opéra de Montréal internally. “We believe that dynamic pricing helps create excitement about buying tickets quickly, because the challenge of filling a room is very real for our industry,” a spokesperson for the company told me. Montreal Opera.
Last week, I highlighted the efforts of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Metropolitan Opera of New York and of the Orchester Métropolitain de Montréal, to democratize classical music and make the general public feel that it is also intended for them.
The Orchester Métropolitain has always been committed to making great music accessible. 30 years ago, even though I was a student in debt, I could afford to pay my rent and subscribe to OM.
The Opéra de Montréal is also making efforts to attract young audiences and offers “a few tips for saving money” on its website. Tickets for only $34 are offered for the first three operas of the season to young people aged 18 to 34 and children are entitled to a 50% discount. Subscribers also benefit of course from promotions. The fact remains that dynamic pricing causes the prices of other tickets to skyrocket as soon as there is enthusiasm.
Do we find it normal at the Opéra de Montréal that tickets are sold individually at $500? “Yes, it is quite normal, after having offered many discounts and affordable prices, that we also put tickets on sale at a price that the market is ready to pay”, supports the spokesperson of the Opéra de Montréal, recalling that it is an NPO and that the revenue generated by box office generally only covers between 40 and 60% of production costs.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin said he hoped, in a report broadcast last week on the American show 60 Minutesthat at the end of his days, no one will say that classical music is reserved for the rich and privileged.
No one can claim that an opera ticket costing nearly $600 is within reach of ordinary mortals. It’s an exorbitant price that perpetuates stereotypes about the elitism of symphonic music.
It is a question, not only of image, but also of principle. By agreeing to sell tickets to the highest bidder, according to strict market logic, the Opéra de Montréal is helping to push back to indefinitely the moment when a majority of the population will have the impression that opera is not the prerogative of the wealthiest. Like the ones seen in the latest season of the TV series White Lotusattending a performance of Madame Butterfly at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.
I compared ticket prices on the official websites of some of the biggest opera houses in the world. At La Scala in Milan, it costs 10 to 170 euros ($14.50 to $247.50) to see The Barber of Seville by Rossini. To attend a performance of Turandot by Puccini at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, prices vary between 15 and 220 euros ($22 and $320). My mother the goose of Ravel at the Palais Garnier? From 40 to 95 euros ($58 to $138).
I will be told that these are operas that will be presented next fall and that tickets sold a few days before the premiere may be more expensive. It’s possible.
On the other hand, on Thursday morning I found a ticket on the floor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for a performance ofAida of Verdi the same evening. The price ? US$97.50 (all fees included). That is, C$131.50 at today’s exchange rate. I also found a ticket on the floor for Aida at the Royal Opera House in London next week, at £62 (C$104).
Is it normal that it costs five times more to get a ticket for a performance, with one week’s notice, at the Opera in Montreal than at the Royal Opera House in London? For the price of two last-minute tickets to the Opéra de Montréal, you can buy two same-day tickets to the Metropolitan Opera AND two nights in a Manhattan hotel. And I’m not talking about a low end hotel.
I understand why on weekends, my mother, a great opera lover, is content to see the Met operas on a Montreal cinema screen.