This article further investigates a well-established issue in consumer research concerning cultural offerings, namely the relationship between expert (critics) and audience quality evaluations. We provide a new perspective by arguing that such a relationship must consider the heterogeneity of consumers and experts alike. This article addresses the issue of quality evaluation of performing arts, and the purpose is to determine the relationship between, on the one hand, the criteria adopted for quality assessment, and on the other hand, the preferences for particular theater performances. This is done by simultaneously considering heterogeneity among the consumers and among the critics, which is a new approach in the literature. Using data from newspaper critics’ evaluations and from surveys completed by a sample of operagoers at the Royal Danish National Theater, we perform a multilevel latent class analysis, and we find three distinctive segments: The the unexperienced audience, the conventional connoisseurs and the unconventional avant-gardes. The avant-garde consumers and experts are localized as a distinct segment of audience, with different preferences and different evaluation criteria than the other audience segments (the conventional connoisseurs and the unexperienced audience). Newness and innovation are the most important criteria for the avant-garde consumer segment. The goal of an opera house or a theater is not just to increase attendance and revenue, but equally to innovate the artform. In this perspective, the avant-garde consumers are an important segment for the opera houses and producers of other cultural products, and a better understanding of the early adopters of artistic innovation (the avant-garde consumers), their preferences, evaluation criteria, and behavior, would seem to be crucial information. We suggest future empirical research could focus on avant-garde consumers as an important segment of the audience.

本文进一步探讨了消费者研究中有关文化产品的一个既定问题，即专家（评论家）与观众质量评估之间的关系。我们提供了一个新的视角，认为这种关系必须同时考虑消费者和专家的异质性。本文探讨表演艺术的质量评估问题，目的是确定质量评估所采用的标准与对特定戏剧表演的偏好之间的关系。这是通过同时考虑消费者和评论家之间的异质性来完成的，这是文献中的一种新方法。使用来自报纸评论家的评价和丹麦皇家国家剧院歌剧观众样本完成的调查的数据，我们进行了多层次的潜在类别分析，我们发现了三个不同的部分：没有经验的观众、传统的鉴赏家和非常规的前卫-警卫队。前卫的消费者和专家被本地化为一个独特的受众群体，与其他受众群体（传统的鉴赏家和没有经验的观众）有着不同的偏好和不同的评价标准。新颖和创新是前卫消费群体最重要的标准。歌剧院或剧院的目标不仅仅是增加上座率和收入，而且同样要创新艺术形式。从这个角度来看，前卫消费者是歌剧院和其他文化产品生产商的重要部分，更好地了解艺术创新的早期采用者（前卫消费者）、他们的偏好、评价标准和行为，似乎成为关键信息。我们建议未来的实证研究可以将前卫消费者作为重要的受众群体。