One problem opera companies have always fought is that the audience, while they can appreciate beautiful singing, also want to know what's going on. No matter how good the singer's diction, it's just difficult to follow the text even when it's in your own language.
Supertitles are just like movie subtitles, but are projected over the performance.
Girl of the Golden West will feature SRO's first native implementation. Those who attended Turandot were universally pleased with the the supertitles. For the techies out there, here's the lowdown. The Laptop PC and the projector are mounted on the railing in front of the mezzanine. The projector displays its image on a large screen suspended above the stage approximately 4 feet high and 16 feet wide.