The dilettanti were a group of Rossini opera enthusiasts notorious for their attentive silence and rapturous expressions of pleasure during performances at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris in the 1820s. Although modern scholarship occasionally employs the word fan as a shorthand to describe them, these parallels have not been explored in any depth. Indeed, despite their proximity to one of the most famous composers of the nineteenth century, the dilettanti have not been studied much in their own right. Using Henry Jenkins’ classic definition of fandom as “five levels of activity” to identify patterns of fannish behavior documented by contemporary critics, this essay demonstrates the dilettanti’s legibility as an organized, participatory fandom. Their rapt attention at performances, the creative connections they drew between opera and personal life, their activism on behalf of the Théâtre-Italien public, their fostering of domestic venues for music-making, as well as their romantic embrace of music as escape from an alienating society, all highlight the existence of a recognizable community of fans long before the dawn of the twentieth century.