> Just like public transport, opera and theatre can't possibly fund itself just from tickets - the price would need to be very high to do so. Most things can't

> Just like public transport, opera and theatre can't possibly fund itself just from tickets - the price would need to be very high to do so. Most things can't fund themselves with tickets. That's why most things that could theoretically exist (if we had infinite resources), don't exist in practice. Why should we make exceptions for things like professional opera and professional theatre? I for one am a big fan of Magic: the Gathering, and would love more MtG events in my city - but I'm not expecting the government to fund them. > At the same time donations from rich people are few, far between and wouldn't even cover 1% of the expenses - it's not the XX century anymore and even then I suppose instances of rich people funding entire such organisations were rare. Perhaps it's a sign that opera or theatre are really a thing of the past and hardly anyone cares about them anymore? Well-known polish actor (Jerzy Sztuhr) mentioned once that what he liked about Italy is that going to the opera was part of upper middle-class snobbery there. It was just expected of you, if you wanted to believe to a certain social strata. He liked it, because it meant more funding for his profession - but is it good for society? Shouldn't people do the things they like and not the things that they expect will make impressions on others? Sounds like a miserable way to live to me. > In general it boils down to whether you believe a nation has culture worth preserving or should they all just shut up and produce GDP. At least in my city, most of what is played in my local opera house are foreign operas (https://opera-slaska.pl/spektakle https://opera-slaska.pl/spektakle)... So, large part of the money goes to preserving the culture of other nations. Also, a country having culture does not mean that money must be spent on it. Plenty of culture can be made without any monetary exchange. In fact, that's how culture was made through the majority of human history - people playing music at their houses, or doing amateur theatre in their village or town etc. In fact, that tradition died very recently, with wide dissemination of commercial music via radio (1920s in the US, little later in Europe). Since then, people preffered to sit and passively listen to a broadcast of a recording of some professionals doing music, instead of doing it themselves. Before that, up to the beginning of XX century though, town were full of music made by people themselves.