Many European governments do not consider the ‘edifying’ role of arts and culture as a main criterion for subsidies anymore. On the contrary, there is a growing claim that arts and culture may contribute to an exclusive instead of an inclusive society (Alexander et al. 2014).
This paper contributes to our understanding of the barriers for the ‘initiation’, and the potential for the ‘affiliation’ of new audiences to a form of art, opera, which is largely considered ‘high culture’ (see Benzecry 2009). Opera has been purposively chosen for this research among other art and cultural forms since it is considered one of the most ‘elitist’ forms of arts and, at the same time, it absorbs a large amount of governments’ subsidies for arts and culture. As a consequence, the pressure for opera to open up and reach out to new audiences is particularly high.
Considering the importance of new audiences’ live encounters with an art form in order to understand whether and how that art form might be worthy to them (Scollen 2008, p. 54), this paper investigates in particular how the first live encounter with opera influences the attitude towards engagement with opera of new audience members. Consequently, the following research questions are investigated in this paper:

Main question:
How does the first live encounter with opera influence the attitude towards engagement with opera of new audience members?
Subquestions:
1. Why have new audience members never attended opera before?
2. How do new audience members experience the first live encounter with opera?
3. What role do new audience members see for opera in their lives after their first live encounter with opera?

It is mainly from literature dealing with current audiences of opera (Benzecry 2009, Cuenca et al. 2015, O’Neill et al. 2016, Rössel 2011) that insights in the process of appreciation of opera emerge. Benzecry’s (2009) ethnography of the opera fans, in particular, distinguish between initiation and affiliation to opera, and describes the preconditions for these processes and the modes in which they happen: enchantment and attraction at the first encounter with opera (‘instant of revelation’, p. 135); consciousness that one needs to learn about opera in order to enjoy it. O’Neill et al (2016) focus on what opera fans love about opera. Benzecry’s and O’Neill et al.’s findings have informed the analytical framework guiding my empirical research, together with literature on the differences between regular audience and first time attendees (Pitts 2016), specific literature on university students as target groups of opera and ballet organizations (Tajtáková and Arias-Aranda 2008) and literature on the intrinsic values of art (Brown and Novak-Leonard 2013).
To answer my research question I focus on a specific segment within the so-called young digitals (Experian 2012), as one segment amongst all possible new audiences: University students. I selected two groups of students, students of Art History and students of social and natural sciences and technology, who had never attended an opera performance before the one they attended within this research: ‘Die Zauberflöte’ at the Dutch National Opera on the 12th of September 2018. Out of 40 recruited students, only 19 attended the performance, and eventually 16 were interviewed, 8 per each group. The in-depth interviews of one hour each have been conducted a week after the performance in the premises of the University of Amsterdam, at the presence of the researcher, an assistant, and the interviewed student. The 16 interviews have been literally transcribed and are going to be analysed by the end of 2018.
Some first interesting, and even surprising insights have already emerged before the analysis of the interviews.
The first surprise was already during the search for respondents: many more of the approached students of Art History than one might expect have never attended an opera performance in their life. Of 75 Art History students attending the opening ceremony of the new academic year, 30 have explicitly declared, by filling a form, not to have attended an opera performance that far and were initially available to attend the performance on the 12th of September (later some of them withdrew from participation). Unfortunately, at that moment we did not gather any information about the remaining 45 students. The impression is, however, that the general commitment to ‘high culture’ that those students are supposed to have by choosing to attend a BA programme in Arts History, does not necessarily imply an active interest in, and thus attendance of, other forms of ‘high culture’, like for instance opera. It would be relevant to try to collect a posteriori information about both the 45 students that did not declare anything about their past participation in opera, especially those who had never been to the opera and at the same time did not show any interest in attending a free performance within this research; and those students who signed as participants in the research but who finally did not show up. That information might offer additional insights in the non-values of opera for the investigated segment of non-audience.
What concerns the analysis of the interviews, these have been analyzed per group of students; a cross-analysis will be the next step. The results of the analysis of the interviews so far are summed up in three main points with rrespect to each group of students separately:
Students of Art History:
1. The instant of revelation does not necessarily influence the attitude toward future engagement with opera, both with respect to the intention to attend again and to give a specific role to opera in their lives, and to the consciousness of the necessity to learn about opera in order to enjoy it.
2. The instant of revelation does influence the intensity of the change of perception of opera:
• Respondents without a moment of revelation perceive opera as a more varied form of art, above all with respect to the formal aspects of production;
• Respondents with a moment of revelation perceive of opera as a form of art that they can understand and that is more relevant to them and to society, above all with respect to the content-related aspects of work and staging.
3. The instant of revelation does not influence the perception of the main barrier: opera consumption and learning is time and energy consuming and requires a pro-active attitude and ‘solitary’ efforts.
Students of Social and Natural Sciences and Technology:
1. The instant of revelation does not influence the attitude toward future engagement with the arts, both with respect to the intention to attend again and to give a specific role to opera in their lives, and to the consciousness of the necessity to learn about opera in order to enjoy it.
2. The instant of revelation does influence the intensity of the change of perception of opera and the sort of new perceived motifs for engagement:
• Respondents without a moment of revelation mention motifs that have to do more with educational, social, symbolic and hedonistic benefits, and with the aesthetic development and creative stimulation among the artistic benefits;
• Respondents with a moment of revelation mention more the feelings related benefits and social bonding and bridging benefits among the artistic benefits.
3. The instant of revelation does not influence the perception of the main barrier: opera consumption and learning is time and energy consuming and requires a pro-active attitude and ‘solitary’ efforts:
• Difficulty to find someone to go with;
• Difficulty of ‘using’ opera privately at home ad during spare time.
From these first results some first implications for theory and practice emerge:
Theory:
• The ‘instant of revelation’ might have more forms than only visual and corporal attraction (Benzecry 2009); it might thus be linked to more forms of intrinsic impact than only Art as a Means of Feeling (Brown and Noval-Leonard 2013): Art as a Means of Social Bonding & Bridging, Art as a Means of Aesthetic Development & Creative Stimulation, Art as a Means of Learning & Thinking.
• Demographics might explain potential interest in forms of ‘high culture’ and, partially, processes of initiation; but they explain far less processes of affiliation: a lot of consumption and a part of learning is an individual and not a social process.
Practice:
• Accept, embrace, and promote the role of opera as heritage.
• Accept, embrace, and promote the (possible) role of opera as fun.
• Accept and decide what to do with the role of opera as showing-off opportunity.
• (Re)define your identity and communicate it properly.
• If seeing something unknown is a main motif, repeat visit is hard to reach without incentives (e.g. invitations). For (generational) inclusion, it may be more effective to aim at ‘first-visit’ for everyone with good information plus incentive for second visit and then leave the repeat visit to individuals (dilemma with financial objectives): think of a ‘we bring every citizen to the opera’-program!
• Lack of knowledge cannot be filled by individual arts organizations; lack of learning attitude neither. Lobby for more literature, art and music education and engagement at schools!