Maestro suggeritore

The Maestro suggeritore ( Italian , the expression is a mixture of prompter and conductor ) is a kind of prompter, but with more extensive musical skills than a prompter usually has. It is one of the peculiarities of the Italian opera business that developed in the 19th century. When the individual performance of the conductor was not as central as it is today, he could be the conductor for the singers , while the orchestra conductor was responsible for the orchestra . He is co-conductor, stage conductor, prompter and often also the psychological supervisor of the singers in one. He takes over the signals for tempo and dynamics from the actual conductor and directs the singers from the alley between the scenes when they are in positions from which they cannot see the main conductor. He prompts you permanently with the text with silent lip movements, gives you the signal to appear when you are waiting behind the scenes, and is supposed to guarantee you security.

The maestro suggeritore has a solid training as a répétiteur , profound knowledge of the work and a calming charisma.

There was an opera crisis in Vienna in the autumn of 1963 because Herbert von Karajan wanted to hire a maestro suggeritore to take over a bohemian production from La Scala in Milan , but the union refused a “foreign prompter” who would take away a native's job.

With a camera directed at the conductor and monitors in the backdrops, today's stage technology gives the director more freedom to let the singers act without them having to constantly look in the direction of the conductor. If the singer is not extremely myopic, the prompter can be replaced by text projected onto screens. This has also reduced the importance of the maestro suggeritore nowadays.

literature

• Cornelia Boese: The fairy godmother in the box. The prompter in the music theater , Aachen: Shaker 1997. ISBN 3-8265-3167-1