Programmatic risk-taking by American opera companies

This study explores the relationships between culture, politics, and the decision-making process of the American opera company. It combines socio-economic data with the financial and program data of key opera companies to explore important influences in programming decisions. It tests the hypothesized relationships between risk-taking by opera companies and socio-economic variables such as wealth, government funding, and donor involvement. This study finds that local government funding encourages program conventionality, while federal support such as the NEA encourages program risk-taking. Socio-economic variables such as conservatism, wealth, and education level were also found to affect opera programming.