Traviata, Bohéme and the others: Exploring the drivers of demand for opera in Italy

Highlights

• The main determinants of opera attendance in Italy are examined.

• A novel Unobserved Component Model that captures measurable and latent drivers is adopted.

• Opera is a superior good, with an inelastic price and significant cross-price response.

• Tastes, habits and other non-measurable factors are important predictors of the demand for opera.

• Marked seasonal effects characterise opera attendance with a declining participation trend over time.

• The Unobserved Component Model outperforms the traditional OLS model.

Abstract

This study investigates the main determinants of opera attendance in Italy over the period 2006-2018 using monthly data. To this purpose, a novel Unobserved Component Model that captures tastes and habits, in addition to the traditional demand drivers, is adopted. The results show that opera is a superior good, with an inelastic price and cross-price response. In addition, supply factors and education affect opera participation. Tastes, habits and other latent factors, encapsulated in the unobserved component, play a relevant role in driving opera demand. Strong seasonal effects characterise opera attendance and a declining growth participation over time is recorded.

Introduction

Music is an art form whose roots go back to a distant past. Its history gives a picture of the culture and tastes of societies and their evolution over time.

Italy has a very close relationship with all music genres, from opera to classical music, from chamber to symphonic music, from folk to pop music, and its practice embraces all layers of society, albeit not in a homogeneous way. The country is considered the motherland of opera. This music art originated in Florence at the end of the 16th century when was performed at the royal courts for aristocratic élites (Loewenberg, 1978). Italian opera was influenced by the Hellenistic and Roman theatre, including Greek Drama, and by several vocal genres such as monody (sung poem with a solo vocalist, a single melodic line and instrumental accompaniment) and madrigals (a capella singing by more than one harmonizing vocalists) (Grout and Williams, 2003). In 1637, opera opened to a paying audience at the first public representation inaugurated in Venice (D’Amico, 1963, Russano, Weinstock, 2021). This event marked the transition of opera from the exclusive patronage of royalty, courts and nobility to the broader audience. Soon after, opera became an international phenomenon absorbing the language, the culture and attitude of different composers and countries (Heilbrun, Gray, 2001, Pedrotti, 2019).

Opera can be considered the world’s first multimedia since it combines music, theatre, dramatic narrative, design of sets and costumes (visual arts). Its main four components are: text (booklet or ‘libretto’), music, singing and staging. Opera, like other forms of art and culture, generates ‘intangible’ or non-monetary, non-pecuniary effects. It improves the quality of life, enhances creativity, human sensibility, empathy and innovation; it favours personal growth and happiness (e.g. Ateca-Amestoy, Gerstenblth, Mussio, Rossi, 2016, Chen, Tang, 2021, Frey, 2008, Wheatley, Bickerton, 2017). At the same time, opera contributes to increasing the competitiveness of countries, regions and cities, making them cultural destinations for national and international tourists (e.g. Borowiecki and Castiglione, 2014). Cultural tourists are wealthier and more educated than the average (e.g. Richards, 2005) and hence more desirable in economic terms. Opera fosters urban revitalisation and represents an important cultural heritage, an engine of socio-economic development (e.g. Borg, Russo, 2005, UNESCO, World-Bank, 2021).

Given its value and importance, the present study aims to investigate the determinants of the demand for opera in Italy at a macro-level. Specifically, the variables that influence the participation/attendance¹ to its representations have been explored for the period 2006-2018. In addition to the traditional factors influencing performing arts attendance, namely income and prices (e.g. Bonato, Gagliardi, Gorelli, 1990, Felton, 1989, Withers, 1980, Wu, Jiang, Yuan, 2019), this study adopts a novel approach in cultural economics, based on an Unobserved Component Model (UCM). The UCM approach captures latent drivers such as tastes, habits and other qualitative factors often overlooked by the empirical analyses due to the difficulty in measuring them. The technique adopted in this study enables, hence, the determination of income and price elasticities in a more accurate way and permits featuring, at the same time, the impact of qualitative factors on opera attendance.

This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways.

First, it examines a performing art ‘segment’ that is underscrutinised. While there is sizable empirical research on performing arts in the aggregate or for specific ‘sub-groups’ such as theatre, symphonic orchestra and concerts (e.g. Bonato, Gagliardi, Gorelli, 1990, Ekelund, Ritenour, 1999, Lange, Luksetich, 1984, Willekens, Lievens, 2016, Zanardi, 1998), little attention has been devoted to opera. Surprisingly, no studies have been found on the analysis of the demand for opera in Italy.

Second, the study develops the first application of an Unobserved Component Model in the context of performing arts. Most empirical studies adopting these models have been applied to tourism (Algieri and Kanellopoulou, 2009), consumption and gross domestic product assessments (Golpe, Carmona, Congregado, 2012, Hunt, Ninomiya, 2003, Kuan, Huang, Tsay, 2005, Tóth, 2021) or export analyses (Algieri, 2011). There are no applications in cultural economics. The UCM is a flexible method for gauging latent factors including tastes and quality of performances linked, for instance, to the importance of singers, the director and the opera itself that do influence the participation in an event but are difficult to proxy.

Third, the study investigates the determinants of opera demand using monthly data. This data frequency allows for a finer analysis of the demand and a deeper evaluation of the effects of seasons that are modelled stochastically. Seasonality could be influenced by tourism activities. Borowiecki and Castiglione (2014) documented, for instance, that cultural participation is related to incoming tourism, especially for performing arts for which the knowledge of a foreign language is not fundamental. Indeed, melody, arias and orchestration are among the main factors to attract opera lovers (Colas, 2004).

The remainder of the study is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the main studies on the demand for performing arts and opera. Section 3 outlines the genesis of opera and its salient features for Italy. Section 4.1 describes the adopted Unobserved Component methodology and presents the considered data and their characteristics. Section 5 shows the empirical analysis and the main findings. Section 6 concludes.