How much do you want to pay to see this opera?

How much is culture worth? Cultural events are often so subsidized, especially the performing arts, that it is impossible to understand the true relationship between supply and demand. At least that is the case in Germany, where the 143 public theaters received almost 22 million spectators and some 4,000 million euros in subsidies in 2019, the last year before the new normality. This figure accounted for 35.4% of the entire cultural budget and is key for tickets to continue to have affordable prices. The Ministry of Culture estimates that an average of 80 percent of these tickets are subsidized, and some directors are interested in finding out how much viewers would pay in a free market situation, especially in a context of inflation like the one in Germany. This is the case of Christoph Meyer , the general director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein , in Duisburg, who has invited the public to freely set the price of tickets in a campaign that takes place in the months of November and December, and which has by title: ‘Pay what you want!’. In addition to a minimum fee of ten euros, viewers will decide for themselves how much they can and are willing to add to attend an opera or ballet included in the program and selected for the experiment. The background to the campaign is also the sharp increase in energy prices and high inflation, which call into question the economic viability of theater activity. “As an open cultural institution, which appeals to a wide range of audiences from different social classes and income groups, we see it as our duty to respond to the special challenges of the current situation,” explained Meyer. The CEO considers that the financial burden varies greatly from person to person and that raising the price of tickets to deal with inflation is not a fair solution to: «not all people suffer from inflation equally; therefore, we would like to make an offer that relieves some of them by having to pay only a little, and allows others to act in solidarity by being able to pay more.” Meyer attaches great importance to the fact that a wide range of offerings is available for the entire program, from the family opera ‘Iwein Löwenritter’, to the new production of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Die Jungfrau von Orléans’, to the ballets ‘Nutcracker’. and ‘Krabat’, with choreography by Demis Volpi; or various titles from the repertoire: ‘Don Giovann i’, ‘Tosca’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Die Fledermaus’. “Perhaps people will come to our theater who previously thought they couldn’t afford a ticket,” he wishes aloud; Even among those who regularly attend our performances, there are many who are hesitant about cultural activities at the moment because they don’t know what their heating bills will be like at the end of the year, so we would also like to give them a hand with this campaign.” In any case, he is very curious to know the price that the public sets for itself. An image of ‘Alles Weitere kennen Sie aus dem Kino’ at the Theater Krefeld ABC A similar idea has been launched in Krefeld by the Stadttheater, which invites on November 5 to an unusual event entitled ‘Pay what you want’ and in which the reservation of a ticket for the play ‘Alles Weitere kennen Sie aus dem Kino’ (‘Everything else you know about cinema’), an old piece about the war and family disputes by Christoph Roo s, will be free. In this case the experiment lasts a single night. Once the performance is over, each member of the public will freely decide how much they pay, depending on whether or not they liked the work. “First go to the performance, only then will you pay what the night was worth to you,” explains the theater’s acting director. “The actors will stand at the exit doors of the theater to personally ask for the voluntary payment, and it will not be controlled if each one gives a lot or a little.” Related News standard If Athens announces the first museum dedicated to María Callas on the centenary of the birth of the diva Marta Cañete standard No ‘Aida’, beyond the trumpets and the ‘Triumphal March’ Julio Bravo «Everyone should have the opportunity to go to the theater”, insists Roos, who has been inspired by the Tübingen Theater, where he worked for seven years. An evening of ‘Pay what you want’ was presented there and the result was “that the box office was filled after the performance, with a collection only very slightly lower than that of any day, normally paid”. “But you could tell that the audience was more mixed than usual,” Roos specifies with satisfaction.