Creativity Quote by Lesley Garrett

Garrett’s line is a perfectly pitched piece of cultural salesmanship: a dare disguised as a bargain. By calling opera "credible drama now", she’s quietly conceding the old stereotype first, then flipping it. The "now" does heavy lifting. It acknowledges that opera has long been treated as museum art: ornate, elitist, emotionally remote, full of people dying in languages you don’t speak. Her subtext: that version is outdated, and you’re behind if you still believe it.

The comparison to a football match is the real provocation. She’s not just talking ticket prices; she’s collapsing a hierarchy of taste. Football is coded as mass, communal, authentic. Opera is coded as expensive, exclusive, and performatively "posh". By placing them in the same consumer frame, she refuses opera’s usual alibi - that it’s for connoisseurs with disposable income and insider knowledge. If you can justify a stadium seat, you can justify a night at the opera. The line smuggles in a class argument without preaching it.

"What have you got to lose?" seals the pitch with a gambler’s logic. She reframes attendance as low-risk experimentation rather than cultural duty. No need to "get" it. No need to dress up your identity. Just try. In the context of arts organizations fighting aging audiences and shrinking subsidy, Garrett’s intent is pragmatic: reposition opera as entertainment with stakes, not homework with arias. It’s outreach language with bite, aiming to puncture the fear of looking clueless - the real price of entry.