Under the new leadership of Anthony Roth Costanzo, Opera Philadelphia is reducing the price of all tickets to $11, introducing a “choose your price” model designed to expand the company’s audience.

Costanzo announced Tuesday that the company has raised $7 million since June 1, when he replaced David Devan, who retired after 13 seasons. The money went toward paying down debt and enabling the new model, where people can pay more than the minimum if they want.

“This is the first chapter of a long-term change,” Costanzo said. “To give opera a new place in our time, we have to take risks. We don’t have to bet on safe decisions, and that means we have to accept failure.”

Costanzo, a 42-year-old countertenor with an active singing career on the world’s biggest stages, took over ahead of a 2024-25 season reduced to 10 performances, compared with 30 in 2018-19, the last season before the coronavirus pandemic, and 16 in 2022-23. Tickets for that season originally ranged from $30 to $300.

“Every dollar you spend above $11 not only helps the opera, but it helps the people who want to come to the opera,” Costanzo said. “It will certainly mean a decrease in ticket sales revenue. But it will mean an increase in donated revenue and I believe in the future, foundation revenue and hopefully corporate revenue as well.”

Opera Philadelphia sold 14,211 tickets last season at an average price of $85.77, representing 13% of the company’s revenue. In the 2022-23 season, 17,464 tickets were sold at an average price of $78.32, also representing 13% of revenue.

The Academy of Music’s program this season, which has about 1,800 seats with full view, includes three performances of Missy Mazzoli’s “The Listeners” (the U.S. premiere is Sept. 25), two performances of Joseph Bologne’s “The Anonymous Lover” (beginning Jan. 31) and four performances of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (premiere April 25). The ensemble has canceled its innovative season-opening festival amid budget cuts.

Costanzo spoke with Henry Timms, the outgoing president of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which since 2022 has been using a “choose-what-you-pay” model starting at $5 for many events in its “Summer for the City” program.

Costanzo said the previous model relied on including popular songs such as Bizet’s “Carmen” to boost ticket sales.

“We’re marketing to people who can afford $150 tickets. It’s changing the feel of marketing. It’s changing the demographics of who we’re marketing to and where we’re marketing,” Costanzo said. “Ticket prices and ticket sales are becoming a real focus of how we create art forms in our time. And I think that’s a shame. I think it’s limiting us and hampering innovation and progress.”