San Diego Opera’s most recent production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is an example of how opera companies hope to attract younger audiences while coping with rising costs and smaller budgets. The pandemic hasn’t been kind to the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts has reported that stage performances joined oil drilling/exploration and air transportation “as the steepest-declining areas of the U.S. economy in 2020.” And opera, which had already been experiencing shrinking audiences, was the hardest hit of all the arts. Smaller companies are struggling to stay in business. Even New York’s Metropolitan Opera had to dip into its reserves this season for $40 Million.
How flood victims are coping with more rain. In other news, the executive director of the San Diego Museum Council joins the podcast to talk about the details of February’s Museum Month. Plus, San Diego Opera opens its first grand opera of the season Friday, with a production of Mozart’s \“Don Giovanni.\” We get a behind-the-scenes preview.