Salary
Average Salary: $40,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,669,920
People like Placido Domingo and Sarah Brightman are millionaire "Nessun Dormasters." Their voices and their power have propelled them to LeBron-esque levels of world-wide fame, and that brings a hefty chunk o' change. The lifestyle of the globe-trotting opera superstar is very tempting, but the important thing to think about when you make this life choice is whether you're still willing to put all the effort into this career without becoming rich. In all likelihood, you won't.
While even the moderately successful movie actor or rock musician can get into the seven-digit range without becoming a household name, the opera singer performs in a much smaller niche market.
The good news is, if you hold strong through the down times, you can still make a decent living as a professional opera singer. There may not be a lot of opera fans, but those who are tend to have a lot of money to spend on it.
The average salary may surprise you, in that you might actually be able to live on it. Forty thousand dollars (source) may not seem like a lot when you're trying to style and profile, but when you consider the fact that the average waiter barely makes $18,000 (source), this starts looking like a much better deal.
To start raking in that soldi spesi bene, you have to grow your reputation, and that means booking bigger and better gigs, often in bigger (and occasionally better) cities. You might be working a sweet $450/night job in Cincinnati, but if you can land a recurring role with the New York Met (that's Met, not Mets), you'll be seeing some extra zeroes at the end of your paycheck.
As a professional, you'll also want to be a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists. It's a union, like a Screen Actors Guild for stage musicians, which will set rates and hours and help protect you from slimeball producers who decide not to pay you at the last minute.