Du loggione aux mèmes. Les fans d’opéra à l’ère numérique à Milan et à New York

At the crossroads of cultural sociology, musicology and fan studies, this article investigates opera fan communities in the digital age. This research, carried out between 2019 and 2023, employs a qualitative and comparative methodology combining digital ethnography with on-site participant observation in opera houses. The main case studies are the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mapping opera fandom means examining not only how fans influenced the strategies of opera houses, but also how they preserved the social and spatial heritage of “the Gods” (loggione in Italian). In this article, I focus on the recent cultural history of opera fandom, especially after the rise of the World Wide Web. I rely on the hypothesis that opera lovers can be technophiles and that forms of cultural nostalgia are constitutive by-products of the rise of recording and broadcast technologies. This interdisciplinary article contributes to the advancement of sociological studies on opera as well as to the development of fan studies in the field of the performing arts.