There's an unassailable logic in what you write, Ian    However,  I am not sure the public are altogether happy with the "new" - they certainly don't attend it in the same numbers as programmes full of stuff they already know  (The Four Seasons, the Brandenburg Concertos, Elvira Bleedin' Madigan, The Helicopter Music From Apocalypse Now, The Marriage Of The Barber Of Seville etc).   I think what you're referring to is "novelty" rather than "the new".  I wish I was wrong - I wish they really wanted new music that much,  I really do.   I would cheerfully never work on the Marriage Of Figaro ever again,  if it meant I could work on new pieces instead   One production of Figaro more or less is neither here nor there - everyone would rather work on a world premiere, given the chance, I think?

And don't forget that someone, somewhere is hearing a piece like Figaro for the first time (despite the depressing original premise of this thread).

And even worse, someone somewhere (probably in Scottish Opera's catchment area) is hearing a piece like Figaro for the last time  When I say "a piece", I mean the real thing, and not a recording of the real thing

Does one have to discard the old to appreciate the new?  How could you understand "neoclassical" if you hadn't heard Mozart or Haydn?  Contemporary art has never sold better (I'm told), but this summer you still had to queue for two hours to get into the Hermitage Collection in St P    Surely the aspect of "newness" is only brought into relief by knowing what "old" was like?

I personally like Tarantino's work a lot,  but I wouldn't argue for him to be touted as the be-all and end-all he's so often made to be.

Although I'm not sure a gun is essential,  I have used leafletting in the street (optimally at the Exits of concert-halls at the end of other performances) as a way of below-the-line audience building.  Once those leafletted realised that the leafletters were in fact the musicians giving the performance,  it established an instant rapport...   here were people prepared to stand-around in the cold in order to publicise their own performance. 

I mentioned this on another forum, and was lambasted for it - various snide remarks about "bet Ashkenazy never had to do that, har-har-har!" were made.  However, it was noticeable that these remarks primarily sprang from people who wouldn't cross the street for a concert of any kind, and I am not sure their views "count".  There's a stuck-in-the-mud quotient of Brigadier Bufton-Tuftons whom you will never get to concerts ever, although they will be most happy to jeer from the sidelines as you heave the harpsichord out of the van.

The other side of that is the quotient of people who are interested by what's new, unusual, and different, and isn't necessarily presented at "mainstream" venues by people in black dinnerjackets (I'm sure "black tie" has few merits in audience-building, personally).  This grouping warm to being appealed to "personally", rather than an Announcement in Times Roman about the 14th Subscription Series of Concerts at the Temperance Hall.

Hear, hear, A: couldn't agree more!

There are limits Richard !!

A