Is opera elitist...depends on where you are.

Many years ago I went to a production of La Boheme given in a small park in a poor Italian neighborhood of Boston (it was the late 60's and they were experimenting with culture as a form of riot control).

We went with a friend who was playing the cello in the orchestra. When we arrived there were NO parking spaces. But then folks on the street saw the cello in the passenger seat of Dave's car. Smiles, friendly gestures, and lo, a parking space appeared where none had existed before.

We go to the park, a paved square with streets on all four sides and a couple of battered basketball hoops. A portable stage was set up at one end, and the rest of the park was packed with people of all ages, all with their picnics and folding aluminum lawn chairs. Eating, talking, laughing, shouting...etc. Clearly neighborhood folks, not the elite from Beacon Hill.

When the music started, the park went silent. By the time the first act ended, it was three quarters empty and NO-ONE had left. The entire audience was on their feet, pressed up against the sawhorses that defined the orchestra pit, and they stayed there for the entire performance. By the end, there wasn't a dry eye on anybody over the age of 20. The atmosphere was electric, and the audience response called forth a performance that was beyond superlative. I have never heard anything so amazing in my life, it totally changed my view of opera. It may be posh music in the English-speaking world, but in it's native Italy, it IS folk music, and people sing snaches of aria the way folks here sing songs from "The Sound of Music" or other popular entertainments.