Fine Arts Are in Survival Mode as Funds Dry Up

Marc Scorca of the advocacy group Opera America hopes fans elsewhere will keep coming.

"The opera audience is unusually passionate," he says. "We hope that passion places opera at the very bottom of the list of things that will be cut."

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has seen ticket sales sag and its endowment plunge, but the full season will go on — with a tweak. Instead of performing Mahler's SixthSymphony— which would have required 10 extra brass musicians at a cost of $20,000 — the orchestra will play Mahler's Ninth.