Hard Times of Opera Houses

Abstract Performances of Italian Opera houses are today particularly affected by diminishing Government budgets, inhibited private grantmaking and the credit crunch. Performances of USA Opera houses are not, similarly, flourishing though, if Government grants have always been modest, private contributions have stimulated the USA opera industry for decades. Such results might be reconsidered if Opera Boards would concentrate on both paying customers, members, donors, sponsors, Government, other Administrations, etc. Willingness to pay is only one focus of Opera Boards. Marketing is as necessary as fundraising of both public and private resources. Reports of Italian Opera houses and of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Affairs are checked through for comparable data with USA ones. These ones are investigated in their performances referring to 2008 USA 990 Forms. Cluster analysis – multivariate analysis with the Ward Method – will explore some trends in performances and revenue diversification of USA Opera houses. This research will give evidence of USA and Italian trends: segmentation of paying consumers, segmentation of donors and hence, revenue diversification from multiple stakeholders could both support not-for-profit goals, gaining or consolidating a competitive advantage in the Not-For-Profit Market of Opera. If the Net Gain can be considered a performance estimate of Nonprofits, the Fundraiser Profile of both samples is successful and revenue diversification is limited and contradictory.