Postcard from Madrid: a night at the opera

As soon as the silver curtain went down on Aida, hundreds of members of the audience rushed upstairs to the salons of Madrid’s opera house to drink beer and dance to a live DJ. From Verdi’s “Triumphal March” to Corona’s “Rhythm of the Night” without leaving the building.

Three days before welcoming King Felipe and Queen Letizia for the opera’s official opening, the Teatro Real was hosting a special “youth preview” limited to people between 18 and 35 years of age, who got a discount price and an invitation to the “after opera”. As well as a DJ in the ballroom and several bars, four make-up stands offered guests the chance to evoke some of the opera’s characters. Started last year, this youth initiative is spearheading the institution’s attempt to develop a new generation of opera lovers.

From London to New York, other opera houses are also targeting a younger audience, either by offering them discount tickets for Saturday matinees and specific evenings, or by combining the opera with a full night out. In Los Angeles, for instance, the opera house sells an “aria package” to people between 21 and 40 that includes five operas and three after-parties, as well as free drinks and snacks during the intermissions.

“We’re working hard to bring young people to the opera,” says Ignacio García-Berenguer, the Teatro Real’s director. “I think that we’re also reducing bit by bit opera’s image of elitism. Young people can see for themselves that opera is the most complete musical experience possible, from a choir to an orchestra.”

For the cast of Aida, a younger audience provided rapturous applause from the first aria onwards. The Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti said he was also grateful for the opportunity to show younger people that there was more to culture than what they watch on their mobile phones. “The world is full of fake things, but here there are no tricks,” he says. “We are living in a time when people, especially younger ones, see a video and think it’s all true, so that the video has become something like the new God. But I think opera is closer to God: this is our art, our instruments, our voices — nothing else, just small things that put together become much more powerful.”

Although perhaps not every selfie-taker in the audience experienced a divine connection to Verdi’s Egyptian trumpet march, only very few spectators used the intermission to escape Aida before its sorrowful ending.

Opera is the most complete musical experience possible, from a choir to an orchestra

The evening was also a chance to fill Madrid’s opera house with a differently dressed audience, argued fashion designer Alejandro Gómez Palomo, who was wearing a zebra-striped shirt and whose Palomo Spain clothing brand has been worn by pop stars including Madonna and Beyoncé. “I love to see hipsters and skaters wear what they feel makes them look great for an opera night,” said the 30-year-old designer, who has joined the Teatro Real’s youth committee after staging a fashion show there. “It’s nicer to watch opera next to two 18-year-old girlfriends in lovely skirts than the usual old ladies.”

The seats for this youthful Aida premiere cost between €14 and €34 and the Teatro Real will now stage four previews per season reserved for younger people. Thanks also to an earlier initiative to sell 5,000 tickets during the course of the season at a discount youth price, the Teatro Real has already reduced the average age of Madrid’s opera audience to 54 from 59 over the past decade.

In fact, were it not for the discount price, marketing specialist Elena Gómez told me she would not have considered visiting the Teatro Real for the first time. Asked afterwards whether she now felt enthusiastic enough about Verdi’s music to pay more next time to see another of his operas, Gómez replied that “a bit more”, but her friend disagreed: “Culture and entertainment need to be affordable.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the DJ pumping up the volume once more and urging the partygoers to leave their side tables and return to the dance floor. The disco ball and strobe lights were not exactly a match for the pyramid scenery of Aida, but it was nice to end the night on a joyful note after the tragedy of the opera.

Raphael Minder is the FT’s Central Europe correspondent, based in Warsaw. He was previously a correspondent in Madrid for the New York Times

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