At the intermission during today's Metropolitan Opera broadcast, a question
was asked of the panelists about forgetting their lines, w/ at least one of
them admitting to memory lapses during which he was grateful for the saves
he got from the prompter.

Exactly, how does that work?  It would seem that if a singer forgets his
line, the music isn't going to stop for him and by the time he's been
coached by the prompter it will be too late.  Just how does a prompter
restore the flow occasioned by an opera singer's memory loss?

Walter Meyer