THE BOWL’S UNSUNG HEROES

A winning evening at Hollywood Bowl, which opens its 1985 season tonight, involves much more than good music-making and a carefully stocked picnic basket, although the thousands who converge on Cahuenga Pass this summer for concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic probably won’t care about much else. Making sure that these throngs remain content in their endless pursuit of that perfect night at the Bowl are four key individuals who toil in near-anonymity.

In recent seasons at the Bowl, the question most often asked--perhaps after “Who forgot to pack the corkscrew?”--is “What are those funny-looking balls above the stage for?” Production sound head Frank Supak has a simple answer: They’re for the orchestra.

“The players had been complaining that they couldn’t hear each other onstage, so we got together with acoustic consultant Abe Meltzer and architect Frank Gehry and came up with these balls to reflect the sound to different areas of the stage. I think they’ve helped the conductor the most.”

What has helped the sound most for the audience , Supak says, is the development within the last six years of a new microphone placed on the stage rather than above it. The improvement is more than merely cosmetic. “When I came across the pressure zone mike, or PZM, I placed a few onstage. The orchestra players looked at me quizzically. But what a shock it was to hear, finally, that we were getting a decent sound.”

To pick up the woodwind section, Supak embedded a pair of PZMs in vertical plexiglass panels (“to fool the mike into thinking it’s part of the floor”). Only four other mikes are used, not counting any required by a soloist. “We are evolving toward simplicity,” he notes.

Audience response has been favorable, the 20-year Bowl veteran says. “Because of the microphones’ invisibility from out front, a lot of people think we finally got rid of amplification altogether.”

There is also an element of invisibility in the speaker network, Supak reveals. In addition to the highly visible JBL system mounted above the stage are more than 128 omnidirectional speakers hidden in the hedges throughout the Bowl. “You won’t realize they’re on,” he notes, “but you miss a lot of sound when they’re off.”

Supak is not above an occasional bit of sound trickery: In the final section of Holst’s “The Planets,” a wordless chorus ends the piece with an eerie “fade-out,” depicting the endlessness of space. “We blend the sound into the front and side speakers and, as the music fades, reduce from the side and boost at the front. The sound shifts from overhead to above the Bowl and off into the hills beyond.

“The first time we tried it, there was a huge shooting star.”

Ideally, shooting stars are the only extraterrestrial objects to zoom across the Bowl’s airspace. To help ensure this, production manager Mark Ferber maintains a hot line from his backstage post with all local airports and with police and sheriff helicopter divisions. “In fact,” he points out, “we brought some air traffic controllers to a concert and sat them down so they could understand the problem.”

Another approach is the placement at all airports of a poster warning pilots to stay away from the Bowl. This year’s edition playfully depicts a World War I biplane over the Bowl shell, about to be snuffed out by five anti-aircraft emplacements.

Normally, Ferber’s activities are concentrated on a trouble-free performance. “I’m a detail man,” he explains. “I run around backstage and make sure everything goes correctly.” Apart from an errant aircraft now and then--most notably, the legendary Goodyear Blimp flyover of 1981--just about everything has.

The real nuts-and-bolts planning for the Philharmonic’s summer season originates out of the orchestra’s offices at the Music Center. Executive Director Ernest Fleischmann and General Manager Robert Harth plan repertory and guest conductors and soloists about a year in advance. With Fleischmann on sabbatical for most of this summer, the job of overseeing matters at the Bowl falls on Harth.

Planning repertory is one of the most complex of Harth’s duties, he acknowledges. “Over the years, we’ve gotten to know our audience. The Bowl is for everyone, and so we try to balance out things. It’s all great music--a lot of it may be too tried and true for the regulars, but not for a lot of people who come.”

As general manager, Harth helps keep a watchful eye on Philharmonic moneybags. Even with all its crowd-pleasing fireworks shows and pops programs, the Bowl actually doesn’t make as much as one might think. “The summer gives us the opportunity to not incur a deficit for 2 1/2 months,” he says. “If you make a little money, you are doing well.”

What sells tickets? “The program is the No. 1 consideration, followed by the guest artist. But right up there is the magic of the Bowl, something you can’t put a figure on.”

Raoul Pinno is aware of the Bowl’s magic from a close vantage point. As house manager for the last 10 seasons, he heads a staff of about 100 to 150 ushers who deal directly with the crowds. “Everywhere I look I see a sense of family,” he says. “Not just among the ushers--some of whom have been at the Bowl more than 20 years--but among the patrons, particularly way at the back. They bring us gifts, offer us drinks.”

But not all are so friendly. The empty box down front has lured more than one enterprising soul. “Sometimes they just don’t want to move,” Pinno notes. “One took a swing at me. We nearly had to have him handcuffed.”

Pinno maintains close ties with his staff, most visibly on the last Saturday of August when, much to the amazement of Bowl goers, it is Christmas in Cahuenga Pass.

“Christmas is a time for sharing and being with friends,” he explains. “But we don’t work together in December. So, for one night, we organize choruses singing Christmas carols, exchange presents and even hire a Santa Claus.”

An out-of-town tourist might shrug and say, “Well, that’s Hollywood.” Wiser natives only nod and murmur, “That’s the Bowl.”