No space prompts an innovation

The question on everyone’s mind at the opening of Los Angeles Opera’s new production of “Vanessa” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion last weekend wasn’t about Samuel Barber’s music. It was: What was that black box at the front of the stage?

Normally, you might find a prompter’s box there, a kind of phone booth where a person hides to assist singers with their lines and cues. But this box looked far too small for that. Even a child couldn’t fit into it.

In fact, it was a prompter’s box -- invented because of limited room, given a set that hangs over the lip of the stage.

“There was no physical space to get a person into the orchestra pit either,” says Jeff Kleeman, technical director for the company. “So I thought we could experiment with some simulation.”

Kleeman uses a flat-screen video to project the image of a live prompter, Cathy Miller, who sits in the wings.

“Singers can read her lips and see her hands, which is important since a lot of cues are gestural.”

In the past, the company has used a prompter’s box sparingly. But if an artist wants one -- and soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who sings the role of “Vanessa,” did -- the company will provide it.

“I don’t know about the future,” Kleeman says. “It would appear that we were the first to do this. We have a whole fleet of international artists here for this production. No one has heard of or seen anything like it.”

-- Chris Pasles