NYC Cultural Innovation Lab Selected to Design and Launch the Lab.

Supported by The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc.

OPERA America is pleased to announce the creation of its Business Innovation Research & Development (R&D) Lab. The Lab will be a practical framework through which opera companies can work together to identify challenges, test promising solutions, measure outcomes, and share findings across the field. The initiative is supported by a $125,000 planning grant from The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc., which renews the foundation’s commitment to OPERA America’s work on audience building and financial sustainability.

OPERA America has selected Harrison Lee and Daniel Gomez Seidel of the NYC Cultural Innovation Lab to lead the design and initial implementation of the R&D Lab. Lee and Gomez Seidel bring expertise from cross-sector innovation practices. They were selected from a competitive pool of 28 proposals submitted through an open call.

“Opera doesn’t have a shortage of creativity. What we need is a stronger infrastructure for applying that creativity to the business of opera,” said Michael J. Bobbitt, president/CEO of OPERA America, who is leading the project. “For too long, companies have been asked to solve challenges independently, often without the time, resources, or research capacity to know whether a promising idea actually works. The R&D Lab changes that equation. It will equip companies across North America with practical tools and the much-needed capacity to try different things.”

Rather than a one-time study, the R&D Lab is being designed as an ongoing function of OPERA America, with the hope that the Lab will be a permanent program. Drawing on R&D practices from business, technology, and service design, it will give opera companies of all sizes the methods and tools to test ideas rigorously. It aims to also reduce the risk of experimentation for companies without dedicated research staff. Lessons from both successful and unsuccessful experiments will be shared with the field.

“Its goal is not simply to generate new ideas,” said Lee and Gomez Seidel, “but to give companies the research methods, business tools, and organizational capacity to determine which ideas work, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost, together.”

In the initial phase, which runs through March 2027, the team will review results from OPERA America’s A/B Testing Grants, which supported 14 opera companies in testing newcomer retention strategies, to identify promising results and lessons to guide future experiments. It will then develop a shared experimentation framework derived from three to five experimental concepts out of the 14. Two concepts will be beta tested by a cohort of five to seven opera companies, supported by $25,000 in grants. Opera companies will be invited to apply to be a part of the pilot cohort, with the hope of selecting participants across markets and budget sizes. Over time, the Lab’s agenda will expand to address broader challenges facing the field, including workforce and leadership sustainability and opera’s advocacy and civic relevance.

“The opera field is rich with artistic innovation, but its long-term vitality will also depend on our willingness to rethink how organizations engage audiences and sustain their businesses. The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation is proud to support OPERA America in creating a laboratory where promising ideas can be tested, evidence can guide decisions, and discoveries can benefit companies across the country,” shared Michael A. Carpenter, president and chairman of the board, director of The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc. “We believe this investment has the potential to do more than solve individual challenges — it can help build a culture of experimentation and shared learning that strengthens the entire field.”

The R&D Lab is the latest phase of OPERA America’s work building on its Understanding Opera’s New Audiences study of newcomer motivations, experiences, and barriers. OPERA America published the study in 2024 in partnership with Arts & Culture at NORC, based at the University of Chicago, with leadership support from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2024, a $500,000 grant from The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc., continued that work, funding a multi-modal project to help opera companies understand newcomer behavior and turn first-time visits into ongoing relationships with opera. To date, the project has produced three reports, three essays by members of the field, the A/B Testing Grants, and multiple webinars and conference sessions, with three additional publications forthcoming.

To explore OPERA America’s audience development research, visit New Audiences.