My mother worked as an artisan in a theatre before retirement(I'm Polish BTW).

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.

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.

Most musicians (and I've met quite a few during my time in a choir), especially singers already have a day job.

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.

> 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)... 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.

> Why should we make exceptions for things like professional opera and professional theatre?

Because that is our cultural heritage and it at least preserves the know-how necessary to perform it.

It's notable that our most prestigious cultural event - the International Chopin Piano Competition - is largely publicly funded.

You can think of it as a form of branding - just applied to entire nations.

> 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.

I happened to have spent four years in Bologna - exactly where Stuhr went in the 80s - and have been in the opera there because my neighbour(old man) had an, ahem, monthly subscription of sorts, which awarded him discounts and he invited me along because his wife couldn't go that time.

Does that strike you as an upper-middle-class thing?

My experience is that especially in Italy people participate in culture much more than around here - it's what makes their national brand strong despite longstanding economic issues.

> At least in my city, most of what is played in my local opera house are foreign operas

Most of the artistic value in opera is the performance which, looking at the cast, is still firmly Polish. Singers often sing in languages that are entirely foreign to them - even if there's a sizeable amount of material written in their own.

> Just like public transport, opera and theatre can't possibly fund itself just from tickets

That's not true.

Operas and theatres can fund themselves. But subject to 2 key points: They need to program a sufficient number of popular shows that will turn a profit (an experimental avant-gardist performance might not sell out, a popular comedian might, popular and famous shows/musicals in London's West End or NYC's Broadway are raking it in), and the number of venues must be commensurate with the actual demand.

The theatre my mother worked in made an attempt at this.

It's harder to pull off than it looks because your reputation as a serious venue is at stake.

Theatre especially goes out of its way to avoid being labelled as a glorified low-tech cinema. Unfortunately that means less money.

Fine but then this is a choice and the theatre should take responsibility, and that might mean closing down... Honestly that sounds like an elitist, a bit snobbish, attitude ("we won't lower ourselves to making popular shows" sort of thing)

Here in the UK venues have very popular pantomine shows ("pantos") for children/families at Xmas. They are not serious and often slapstick comedy but they sell tickets and fill the room.

Sometimes you have to make airplane noises to make a baby eat its food in the same way you have to convince the broader public that money isn't the only thing that is important in life. Family, friends, art, nature and philosophy are more important than making money, though seldom realized until people are on their death beds... I've never heard of anyone laying there dying saying, "I should have devoted my life to making more money", but those that did often wish they devoted their life to one of the items in the list above.