"Lately, over the last six months, there's been more interest from younger couples," Ms. Stockli said.
But this factor also covers younger couples living with a parent and single parents doing likewise.
THE CROWD Old-money locals and younger couples from farther away, casually dressed and unperturbed by the loudness.
The show tries for a sheen of topicality in the generational fault line between the younger couples.
Adding to the pressure, younger couples, including the Pulkkinens, are buying their homes from empty-nesters, who often sell to escape the rising tax burden.
Reasons for the decline include women outliving men, leaving an increased population of widows, as well as a greater number of younger couples choosing instead to cohabit.
The older and younger couples interact throughout the score, which is more of an ensemble piece — a succession of duets, trios and quartets — than most operas.
In their view, divorce seems to have declined among younger couples, but it doubled in the two decades before 2008 among people over 35.
And while Boquete's real estate market was once dominated by porch-swinging retirees, the latest wave of arrivals tend to be younger couples in their 40s and 50s.
Younger couples, from an era when gays were less closeted, were inclined to consider marriage an entitlement that would erase their perceived second-class status.
It was in the 1990's that town officials decided to do more to keep older residents, and to draw younger couples with no children.
