New York City's Poperahouse

Americans have a special talent for coining linguistically correct, but absurdly nonsensical oximorons. They easily link together two totally antagonistic, incompatible terms and come up with terms like: pretty ugly, terribly good or all natural artificial flavour. Normally, "Microsoft Works", "Peace Force", "Government Organization" and "Opera for All" would all fit into the same category too. Well not this fall in Manhattan.
The New York City Opera’s 25-bucks-a-seat promotion is more than appealling for snappy culture aficionadas, like me, who happen to live on a student budget. Don Giovanni, Cavallera Rusticana, Carmen and Agrippina are among this month’s favorites but there are more to come as we ease into the season.
To totally dispel the myth of opera, NYCO`s website offers an encouraging list of opera Q&As covering such opera related trivia as "what to wear" or "what performances to pick as an opera freshman". So, popular myths like “opera is for blue hair only”, or “opera is antiquated and boring” are crushed one by one by giving an honest argument and alluring invitation to the enchanted world of librettos.
In line with its original goal to be the “popular version” of its elder neighbor, the Met, the New York City Opera is as American as apple pie. True, one can still buy tickets for over a hundred dollars for any performance, but these new initiatives are openly aimed at popularizing a form of entertainment that bears the historical badge of elitism and exclusivity – concepts that are so foreign to the American mind.
You might think that "Opera for All" is just a new-wave example American hypocrisy. But when you do a quick sociological monitoring of the crowd in the break you see rich and poor, black and white, Asian and Caucasian, you name it!
It looks like, the NYCO realized that opera has great potential in socializing people into high culture. But to appreciate it, people have to understand it and more importantly they have to afford it. Twenty five dollars for an average student in New York is the price of going out for a dinner or a couple of drinks. For most of them, opera is not, and probably never will be, a tempting alternative, but for more and more people it is.
Obviously, NYCO is not a charity organization: it counts on its newly recruited opera fans to become frequent visitors and passionate opera consumers when they graduate and will eventually be able to afford to buy better seats. But until then, they are more than welcome to sit in discounted first row seats and informative lectures. After all, stage is the whole world, and all must play a part.