Highbrow Music?

I don't attend opera very often, but one thing impressed me at Saturday's performance of Verdi's Falstaff. The patrons were tall, very tall.

I am a moderately tall American at about 6' 2.5" (perhaps an inch shorter than I used to be before back surgery and old age). In my generation that put me in maybe the 97th or 98th percentile, but at the Santa Fe Opera there were a lot of people taller than I, many of them much taller (6' 6" plus). There were even a lot of women nearly my height.

Kids today are somewhat taller, but many of these guys were of my generation. Usually if I see as many tall people, I have run across a college or pro basketball team.

So is there something about opera that attracts tall people? Or this this just a Santa Fe thing?

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