Twitterdammerung: The Twitter Opera

After reading chapter 8 of Kanter and Fine's book, I was curious to read more about the opera that was created by Twitter followers of the Royal Opera house. I admit that I am usually wary of anything that invites a great deal of crowd input, especially when it comes to the arts. (This comes from my teenage past of watching a season of American Idol and being completely aghast that the American public would vote off the most talented singers in order to keep those with a certain "look" or personality. But I digress.)

I researched some more about the opera, and found this review of Twitterdammerung, written by a critic that had similar doubts that I did before seeing the opera. This article points out two differing points of view that I was thinking about when reading the Kanter and Fine description of the creation of the opera: would this fun, gimmicky experiment alienate the opera's serious subscribers who want to appreciate art? Or would it succeed in creating a new group (and generation) of opera supporters. Igor Toronyi-Lalic, the critic that reviewed the opera, reported that, although the opera was "nonsense," it did have entertaining and funny moments and was not as terrible as he had predicted. In my opinion, the fact that it succeeded the expectations of a serious opera fan at least somewhat shows that the Royal Opera House used a good balance of crowd involvement and those employed by the opera (for writing the music, choosing which Tweets to incorporate into the staged version of the show, and creating the stage sets, costumes, and characters.) However, I'm sure that other subscribers to the opera would not even consider attending the show.

Do you think that other organizations can benefit from working this far outside of its usual territory? How can organizations try new tactics that will appeal to those outside of its usual group of supporters without alienating these people?