Kindly release opera from its grave! Just because you don't personally consume something, doesn't mean it's dead. For America in particular, I can comfortably state that you live in the best time of all for consumption of opera. As of today opera is the most accessible and affordable to Americans that it has ever been, every major US city has an opera company, DVDs and Youtubes and albums abound, available at prices almost always lower than a lower or lower-middle class working person's single day of wages, which is virtually unthinkable for most of history. I expand a bit here, unfortunately my link to statistics about American opera consumption died, so here it is rebirthed. Unfortunately they haven't been able to redo that survey to update, but as of 2012, a steady percentage of 2% ish of Americans consume live opera every year. 2% seems small, but it's roughly, by some people's estimates, currently the number of Americans who are vegan, and yet I can get both my opera fix and my LightLife Smart Bacon fix with ease in my city. Of course we can't compare this to 18th century Italy, but to put it in perspective, for the oldest opera house in America, the Met, in 1900 if they sold every seat and standing place in the house (which, no way), it would have accommodated 0.112% of the city's total population on any given night.