“Towards a History of
Opera Prompting“

Dr Francesca Vella

“Unlike theatre prompters, whose roles in the evolution of stage practices and the origins of theatre history have been widely debated in recent years, opera prompters remain largely overlooked. In many ways—even more so than their theatrical counterparts—they exemplify the challenges identified by Christin Essin in her history of backstage work in Broadway theatres, where she highlights the ‘incomplete and intermittent archives of technical theater labor’. At first glance, numerous historical materials seem to document opera prompting as a profession: prompter scores, meta-theatrical works, drawings, popular songs and critical writings all offer valuable insights into the practicalities and traditions of this specialised craft. Yet much of this evidence proves slippery: either too mundane to invite sustained interpretation, or presented in the form of anecdote or caricature. What is more, the everyday work of prompters often escaped critical notice, overshadowed by exceptional, disruptive moments: moments in which the prompter’s usually hidden presence suddenly broke through.

Drawing on various nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources, I want to explore some of the challenges involved in writing a history of modern opera prompting. Prompters have long occupied a liminal space in opera. The prompt box—a fixture in most opera houses until relatively recently—positioned them both within and outside the staged world, in a half-subterranean space that composers also used for uncanny sound effects and dramatic entrances and exits. Furthermore, the prompter’s role has constantly evolved in response to shifting configurations of operatic labour—particularly the rise of the modern orchestral conductor and the opera director. Rather than focusing solely on the changing practices and status of the profession, however, in this talk I also consider the prompt box itself as an object at once material and imagined: a workspace, a technological hub, a stage prop, a symbol. Ultimately, and despite long-standing narratives that describe their decline, I suggest that prompters still retain, even in the twenty-first century, a distinct hauntological presence—an idea reinforced by a number of contemporary productions that, rather than concealing the supposedly outdated prompt box, foreground it as a ghostly, mundane or hyper-theatrical element.”