Opera Fandom in the Digital Age: A Case Study from the Teatro alla Scala

Based on ethnographical fieldwork carried out in spring 2019, this article explores opera fandom in the digital age, using the Teatro alla Scala as a case study. In particular, it analyses the audience that fills the loggione, i.e. La Scala’s top galleries where the cheaper seats and the most vocal opera lovers are usually located. Often celebrated (or denigrated) for their enthusiastic behaviour and obsessive attendance, the practices of opera fans have seldom been given any substantive scholarly attention in opera studies. Situated at the intersection of musicology, cultural sociology, and media studies, this article provides an in-depth description of a particular community of opera lovers. It describes not only how opera fans at La Scala make use of digital media, but it also focuses on the ideals of self-sacrifice, utopianism, technophilia and tribalism rooted in the social and architectural history of the loggione. In so doing, the article paves the way for rethinking significant features that have informed the history of opera consumption, such as the star system, the process of mediatization and the evolution of audiovisual technologies. This could also help to re-imagine the future relationship between the creative industries and audience engagement in a highly mediatized society in which the divide between scores, stages, screens and loudspeakers is constantly re-negotiated.