Ralph Koltai

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a theatre designer. His influence on the British stage over the past fifty years has been enormous, ever since he created his first professional theatre set at a total cost of thirty six pounds. Born in Berlin of Jewish origin, he was sent to this country as a boy in 1939, and after the war, as a German speaker, was put on the staff of the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. He's worked in opera, the theatre, ballet, and musicals. If you've been a reasonably regular theatre goer in this country, you've almost certainly sat in front of his work, or at the very least, something influenced by it. Now seventy three, he's still hard at it. I like to give directors what they want, he says, whether they know what they want or not. He is Ralph Koltai. The implication being, Ralph, that they don't always know what they want.

Ralph Koltai1:20

Well, quite often they don't. No. The directors who do know exactly what they want tend not to work with me.

Presenter1:27

Why, because you like to collaborate. You want to have your say.

Ralph Koltai1:28

Do you want to have your idea? I like to I enjoy having the concept for the production, and I've tended to work with directors who actually wait for me to have an idea so that I can that that can be motivated to work within that. Yes.

Presenter1:44

But but you tend to have ideas, it seems, on occasions that will suit the director. I mean, I've I've seen a picture of a set you did for for Ken Russell's production of De Soldarten, which was all kind of bikini knickers and breasts, really.

Ralph Koltai1:54

Was he

Ralph Koltai1:55

Yeah, well that is I know my Ken Russell, and when he said to me I want four acting areas for an opera that dealt with the degradation of women by the military in the eighteenth century, I knew he didn't want four platforms. So I gave him four acting areas which were the dismembered b female body, basically, yeah. And he never questioned it. He said, Yeah, lovely, thank you very much, as if it was a perfectly obvious thing to come up with.

Presenter2:22

But what you pioneered, everyone says, in in this country was the idea of the theatrical concept. That's creating a set which is really a a metaphor for the whole play, which is really what you've just described in the Ken Russell one. But I suppose very early on in your career the most stunning example, the most controversial example, was one that you did for the RSC production of The Representative. Can you describe that to me, that metaphor?

Ralph Koltai2:46

Well, it was an immensely complex, difficult project because how do you put onto the old witch stage what was basically the genocide of six million Jews? I mean that I spent a great deal of time discussing it with the translator talking about the subject and had no idea how to design it at all. And then one day

Ralph Koltai3:11

I don't know how, but this is how it happens. That is how one does what one does do. One gets an idea. It's all about having ideas. It's not about being about art. It's about ideas. And my it came to me that I put the whole play into a gas chamber because that summed it up. And that's what I did and that's what did work.

Presenter3:30

But it was very much I mean, it was a particular angle on the Holocaust, wasn't it? It was uh about the complicity of the Vatican of Pope Pius XII.

Ralph Koltai3:37

Sorry, I should have said that, yes. It was Pope Pius 12 complicit. He had been the nuncio in Berlin prior to being Pope, and obviously was rather taken by Hitler and liked him and for whatever reason. And so when it came

Ralph Koltai3:57

To the the war years and the genocide and the concentration camps he did not intervene.

Presenter4:03

But obviously it was a play that created a a minor international scandal. And that was as much to do with your set as the content of the play. That's the point.

Ralph Koltai4:06

And that's the

Ralph Koltai4:10

Well, possibly. I had a red carpet coming from the gas chamber door, turning to the center to a dais with the papal throne on it. So and all of that, the papal throne, the red carpet, the red runner in the middle of the gas chamber was I think perhaps as powerful a comment as I think perhaps I've ever made in connection with any production.

Presenter4:35

Tell me about your first record.

Ralph Koltai4:36

I'm very, very, very partial to the violin. It's my favorite instrument. And of all of that, the Bruch violin concerto, number one, and in this particular instance played by Kyung Wa Chung, is my very, very favorite.

Presenter5:48

Kyang Mua Cheng playing part of the Adagio the Second movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. One in G minor, with a London Philharmonic conducted by Klaus Tenstett. Um a set may be a long time in conception, Ralph Colte, but um

Presenter6:03

When it happens, I think you've said before, now it can happen just by accident, just like that, the idea comes to you. Can you give me an example of how that might happen?

Ralph Koltai6:11

Oh, there are dozens of examples. All m practically all my work happens by accident and I believe that I'm sort of convinced that most of my best work happens by accident and whatever talent I have is recognizing the accident when it happens.

Presenter6:24

But when somebody says to you, right, I want you to come and do a Midsummer Night's Dream with me, do you then wander around for the next few days thinking, what can I do with this that's going to make a difference?

Ralph Koltai6:32

It's going to be a little bit more. Not quite like that. There's usually something being said. In this particular case, the Midsummer Nights Dream that I'm doing with a Danish director, he did say that he li that the Danes are not so preoccupied, they don't find Shakespeare quite as sacrosanct as we do over here, and he wants to make it sort of entertaining. And so we talked about the sub present-day young people's sub-culture and doing the costumes and doing the play in motivated in that particular way. And so I have a lot of young friends of that generation, and I said, Tell me about discourse, tell me what happens, and what's in and what's not in. Well, you never know how it happened, but the girl who was talking to the friend who I was talking to, she's twenty-three, twenty-four, and she, in conversation, she mentioned skateboards. And suddenly.

Ralph Koltai7:31

That was the accident that occurred. Skateboard, puck on a skateboard. And of course, if you're going to have an actor on a skateboard, you have to design a set that allows that skateboard to be used properly. But with wonderful curves. Yeah, you have to have curves and raised areas that allows it to be used. So the idea of the skateboard dictated the set from that moment onwards.

Speaker 27:44

With wonderful curves.

Presenter7:56

So you're always looking for a kind of single image, a thought that can somehow run through the whole thing.

Ralph Koltai8:00

I'll look at simple form metaphor.

Presenter8:03

Because I was thinking of your your recent production in Nottingham of Tennessee Williams Suddenly last summer, which i i is, as we know, about lobotomy and belief and non-belief, and that you've got a kind of whole rather daly-esque green glass inside of the skull, haven't you?

Ralph Koltai8:17

Yeah.

Ralph Koltai8:19

Yes, well, um yes, I mean it's it's a very surreal set and the play is a wonderful play. It's incredibly

Presenter8:19

Good.

Ralph Koltai8:27

Pertinently and Credrig, carefully written and structured. And so it doesn't want a naturalistic production at all. I did not think.

Presenter8:37

People have said it so often in a conventional conservatory, haven't they?

Ralph Koltai8:40

That's right. It's a conventional conservatory. I did a rather surreal set and um with yes, a sort of transparent large head which had branches growing through it, which was totally flat, it was transparent, it was made of plexiglass and and and one could light it in different ways. And it was the symbol of the play, it was a symbol of lobotomy. The branches could turn red and become arteries, the branches could be a tropical garden, the head could the the the shaven look to the head had to do with lobotomies, it equally had to do with the San Sebastian who went to a monastery and shaved his his head in Tibet and so on. It was had all sorts of c connotations.

Presenter9:22

But on the other hand, you don't want the set to dominate, do you? That's the problem when you're a set designer. If the audience goes away s thinking, you know, great set, pity about the play.

Ralph Koltai9:31

Well, I mean, Trevor Nann said that my sets always uh require the actors, and that's the greatest compliment because I want my space, m the envelope that I create for them to be supportive to to them.

Ralph Koltai9:45

Tell me about your second record.

Presenter9:46

Yeah.

Ralph Koltai9:46

Oh, my second choice is the area from Verte, Pauquois Marveille. I chose it because it was one of the first experiences that I had in designing

Ralph Koltai9:59

Opera. I was given my start by the very famous English soprano Joan Cross, oh, in the fifties, who ran an opera school together with a lady called Anne Wood. And Verter I designed for that little company at Dartington Hall. And I remember

Ralph Koltai10:21

Painting it, building it myself, behind some curtains and listening to the rehearsals that were going on the other side.

Speaker 410:38

Sous for the blood. I must play for the forest.

Speaker 411:07

Put one away!

Presenter11:28

Georges Teeel as Verte singing his aria pourqua mu reveille from Act three of Massinet's Verteur with the orchestra of the opera Comique conducted by Ellie Cohen.

Presenter11:38

Let's talk, Ralph Colter, about you personally. Um you spent the thirties as a boy in Berlin attending a Jewish school. Was that particularly uncomfortable then?

Ralph Koltai11:49

Oh no, it was not it in fact was the very opposite, it was very comfortable. But the atmosphere of Berlin at the time. Oh, the atmosphere of Berlin, well, one took it in one's stride, that's how it was. I mean, the school was in fact incredibly special, and I am still to this day, sixty years later, in touch with quite a lot of the survivors who made it abroad in the in the late thirties.

Presenter12:12

You made it here, as I said, in in nineteen thirty-nine. Your parents divorced and you were kind of shipped over here. You were a bit of an orphan, really.

Ralph Koltai12:19

Well, yes, as happened in those days, all sorts of applications were made to all sorts of countries, all sorts of institutions to allow young children to emigrate. And it so happened that one of those was done via the via the Society of Friends, the Quakers, who eventually were the were were were the people who brought me to this country.

Presenter12:40

But for some reason you ended up in a kind of Bostel institute.

Ralph Koltai12:43

Well, that was because this particular Quaker was a a a do gooder like Quaker as well, and he happened to want to uh take an on turning uh boys from approved schools in Bossel into good British citizens. And so he thought, well, he can put a couple of boys from Jewish boys from Germany in there as well, because then he's doing two good things at the same time, the Bostel boys and the and the emigrants. And so it happened that I and another boy joined that group of young delinquents in order to be in order to be taken care of.

Presenter13:18

But you obviously had quite a a a a reasonably sophisticated middle class background. Your father was a a doctor in Berlin.

Ralph Koltai13:23

Yeah.

Presenter13:25

So it would have been a bit rough and tough for you.

Ralph Koltai13:27

Well, it was, but I happened to be a bit it so happened, fortunately, that I was a bit stronger um than the other boys. I was quite tough, so I managed to hold my own, yeah.

Presenter13:37

Record number three.

Ralph Koltai13:39

The the next show is Marian Anderson.

Ralph Koltai13:42

as Delilah from Saint John Sampson and Delilah, singing Amour Vien Ade, and the reason I've chosen it, it was again one of my very earliest productions in opera.

Ralph Koltai13:56

At the time when I did it, it was in I think 1954. There was no complete recording of Samson and Delilah that existed or that I could find. But I had this 10-inch 78 record with this particular aria on one side and Softly Awakes My Heart on the other side. And I designed all three acts of Sampson and Delilah by listening first to one side of this 10-inch and then on the other side. It was a great success.

Speaker 415:15

Under keeping up

Presenter15:26

Marian Anderson as Delilah singing the aria Amour Vienne et Day from Act Two of Sansons Sampson and Delilah.

Presenter15:33

Eventually, when you were seventeen, in the middle of the war, Ralph, you were reunited with your your mother in in Surrey. But had there been anything at all in your background and in this kind of dislocated upbringing that might have pointed towards your theatrical talent, your artistic talent, your design talent?

Ralph Koltai15:50

No, absolutely nothing at all. And the fact that I took up what I did take up was total chance. I joined my mother at a convalescent home in Epsom, where I became a gardener growing vegetables for the war effort. I wasn't particularly good at it or particularly interested at it, but there was an art school in Epsom, Epsom art school. And I joined this in evening classes because it it came about that there was a notice on the building of the convalescent home which said entrance with an arrow. And I thought it was so very badly painted and the lettering was so awful. I thought surely one can do this a bit better than that. And it was I remember seeing that notice and thinking, I think I'll take some art classes or some graphic art classes. In those days it was called commercial art. Commercial art classes, see whether I can paint a better notice that said entrance.

Presenter16:42

So this was the whole reason.

Ralph Koltai16:44

And that was the whole reason why I took up art. After Epsomal Scule, I actually got a.

Ralph Koltai16:50

a job in a in a in a studio, in a commercial arts studio in Hoban, Abbey Arts Limited, I still remember. And they we had a contract or the firm had a contract with the Admiralty which were sort of posters about, I don't know, careless talk costs lives and things like that. And the management, the directors of this studio, had to inform the Admiralty of the background of their employees. Well, when they informed them about my background, they were told that they better let me go because I was an enemy alien and therefore they shouldn't be employing an enemy alien when they had a contract with the Admiralty. Well of course as you can imagine, the directors spent sleepless nights trying to decide what to do, whether to keep me or lose the contract.

Ralph Koltai17:37

Well, having finally torturously decided they better let me go, I then volunteered to join the British Army.

Presenter17:43

So you volunteered as the war ended, I think, in nineteen forty five or so, and it was of course discovered you were a German speaker and you were posted off to Nuremberg as part of the intelligence unit. What was your job there? What did you have to do?

Ralph Koltai17:47

Yeah, so

Ralph Koltai17:55

I was a reference librarian of German law to the British le delegation. Of course I knew absolutely nothing about German law, um but I was given an office in the courthouse in Nuremberg, and I made myself a library. And when you win.

Presenter18:09

into the courtroom, as you did from time to time, and you witnessed the proceedings. You've said that you were impressed on occasions by the cleverness of some of the defendants, not least Goering. Why did you find him so impressive?

Ralph Koltai18:23

Mr. Well, the the fact was that some the not all of them were were stupid. I mean um s the the leaders of the Third Reich they weren't all idiots, some of them were, I mean like like Streischer, like Julius Streischer, the Jew bit, I mean he was a moron. But when Goering uh was cross-examined, he actually made mincemeat of the leading American prosecutor called Robert Jackson because, you see, the prosecution had been lulled into a sort of false sense of security because the prisoners weren't allowed to talk for about three months while the indictments were being read. And then when they were allowed to talk, it suddenly one discovered they weren't, as I say, they weren't all that stupid. So it was Sir David Maxwell Fife who came to the rescue and and and and brought brought back some dignity into the proceedings.

Presenter19:11

The British prosecutor.

Presenter19:14

More music.

Ralph Koltai19:16

Well, choice number four.

Ralph Koltai19:19

is particularly significant for me because we see

Ralph Koltai19:22

Quite a major piece of work, Wagner's Ring Cycle for English National Opera, which I was commissioned to do by Stephen Arlen, who was the predecessor to George Lord Harwood. And he commissioned me to design, with Glen Byram Shaw and John Bletchley as directors, the whole of the Ring Cycle. It was a fairly major event and subsequently made a major musical impression.

Speaker 420:01

This will be more of living.

Speaker 420:13

Uh

Presenter20:51

Alberto Remedios as Siegfried and Rita Hunter as Brunhilde in Act Three of Wagner's Siegfried with the Saddler, as well as orchestra conducted by Reginald Goodall, and a production which you were very much a part of in the mid-70s, Ralph, in your middle period, as it were. Let's talk about that production as an example of your work, because I know a lot of people said it looked like a moonscape. You made it look like a moon landing, and of course that's exactly what was happening at the time.

Ralph Koltai21:17

Well, I think it was subconscious, like most of what I do, is I'm I d I'm not conscious. Um my my settings didn't look a bit like the moon landscape, but they were

Ralph Koltai21:28

Otherworlding, yes, because the ring doesn't to me doesn't or at that time doesn't happen

Ralph Koltai21:36

On this planet, it happens somewhere in outer space.

Presenter21:39

And what about Valhalla then bursting into flames at the end?'Cause that's that's perennially very difficult.

Ralph Koltai21:43

And what bursts into flames is is um yes, there's a secret funeral pyre and Rita Hante is Brunhilde spending a great deal of time singing the emulation at that point. And I used to go and have during her hustles I used to go and eat dinner during that and come back again and she was still singing. Um well, I mean this was done with lighting, effect, smoke and all the rest of it.

Presenter22:11

But l let me get back to the point that perhaps you were subliminally influenced by the moon landings at the time in the seventies, because I know that what you believe is that any production should somehow be woken up, brought up to date, so that it has its full effect, don't you? You don't believe that we should see Shakespeare or Werner.

Ralph Koltai22:28

No, I I'm concerned with conveying what the piece is about, not where it takes place. Um the gas chamber. That's what the piece was about.

Ralph Koltai22:39

And so

Ralph Koltai22:41

I've I've I'm that I'm always concerned with the subject matter and not not the location.

Presenter22:48

Yes, and and p setting it in perhaps quite often a a modern setting so that it has a has a a greater effect on the present day audience.

Ralph Koltai22:55

I try and have some sort of immediacy because after all the mo the audiences, the audience today is the audience of today, and they are motivated by and and involved in in today's society which thinks in a particular way at a given moment.

Presenter23:14

But I suppose some people might say that's that can be interpreted as being quite patronizing towards the audience, that they're not going to understand Midsummer Night's Dream unless Puck is on a skateboard or or Wagner's Ring Cycle unless Bru Brunhilde is on the moon.

Ralph Koltai23:21

No, I need to sound

Ralph Koltai23:30

Well, um

Ralph Koltai23:32

Finally, it's a matter of whether it works for the audience. I don't think it's patronizing. No, I think it is.

Ralph Koltai23:41

It's a question of whether whether doing it like that in the end.

Ralph Koltai23:47

It's appreciated by the audience who sees it and

Ralph Koltai23:51

The proof of the pudding is does it work?

Presenter23:54

Tell me about record number five.

Ralph Koltai23:58

Et did PF E Non Je Regrette Rien because I just love her singing, that's all.

Speaker 424:04

No.

Speaker 424:10

No run of a greater ya.

Speaker 424:15

Nila bea coma.

Speaker 424:21

Need a mile.

Speaker 424:23

Simon Yelly

Presenter24:35

Edith Pieff and Non Jeur Greta Rien. Brecht, I think Ralph Colta had always fascinated you. In fact, The Caucasian Chalk Circle was the first play as opposed to opera you directed. But it was really Machagoni, wasn't it? Which was which has a real story attached to it, because you you con music, of course, by Kurtweil, and you contacted his widow, Lotta Lenya.

Ralph Koltai24:55

I was so fascinated by the opera, by the piece of work, that without having any uh approach by anybody to be doing it, I prepared a production in my o in my own mind. I prepared in the Brechtian manner this the Arbeitspuch, a sort of workbook that was this the way that that Brecht put productions together, and I did the same thing.

Presenter25:18

So you just sketched

Ralph Koltai25:19

You sketched. Yes, you sketched scenes, because Brecht pieces always have about twenty six scenes or something. So I you work out the concept. But what made it special was the fact that having designed my Aubertsbuch, my sketches, prepared my sketches, I got

Presenter25:20

Etched.

Ralph Koltai25:35

In touch with Lottalenia in New York, and I said I'd like to meet her. Anyway, it was arranged. And I was like a kid, and so enthusiastic, and at the same time, rather frightened to meet this formidable lady. And I thought, where am I going to meet her? Not at some American hotel. No, let's have an English setting. So I chose Brown's Hotel in Albemarlet Street for tea, and we had tea and muffins. And I showed her my book. And she was initially, to begin with, really quite bored at meeting anybody who wanted to talk about Mahagoni. After all, I wasn't the first person to approach her, no doubt. And she gradually warmed, as she was looking at my book, at my drawing, she gradually warmed it, and she started to be critical and involved and said, Well, Brecht wouldn't have done this, and he would have done that, and this is nice, and this isn't. But she started to be interested. And by the end of our tea, we'd established a rapport. And she said, Well, let's see what's going to happen. We'll meet again one day. And then nothing happened for about three years. And then three years later, she came back and we met again. This time I'd linked up with Michael Gelliott as a director by that point. And he came with me when we met her.

Ralph Koltai26:52

And she said, I've been asked by you, and I can still remember the phrase, by your opera company, said Les Wells, by your said Les Wells Opera Company I still remember the word your for the rights of the piece. And I said,

Ralph Koltai27:08

what have you said? And she said, I haven't said anything, but I will. And what I will say, if the two of you do it, then they can have my rights for it. And that was like, you know, like being four years old and being given

Speaker 427:17

Voids

Ralph Koltai27:22

given a a a little electric train around the Christmas tree. And the reason I think why she basically gave her rights to an opera company was because she wants she wanted to do justice to Wahl, who had always played second fiddle to Brecht. And the major contribution in all the Brecht Wahl pieces is actually Wahl's music. He's sh he is the the the major contributor, whether it's Mahagoni, whether it's Seven Deadly Sins, whether it's um uh Tripoli Opera.

Presenter27:53

She felt sore on Vaal's behalf about that.

Ralph Koltai27:55

Chief.

Ralph Koltai27:56

No, she didn't obviously say so. But she wanted the musical rendering. She wanted the music to be empha emphasized as opposed to the spoken word. Hence

Ralph Koltai28:07

It was cast with opera singers.

Presenter28:09

As we shall now hear, I think, in your situation,

Ralph Koltai28:11

Oh, right, right, yes. Um there's one particular section that she sang in the nineteen twenty eight production of Mahagoni, which I've chosen for us to listen to now.

Speaker 428:23

Mine hell and mine won't break the Of mich Einstein Schlimmeswort.

Speaker 428:32

Ichfur denden im Schauhaus, Odar an einem noch shliman or

Speaker 428:47

Abrich sage euchar auswirtniets.

Speaker 428:52

Das kern dir nich mach en mid mier.

Speaker 428:56

Was as mirr wirtasverden wir jun sien, ein menge est keintier.

Speaker 429:11

Den vanzig ver petolichman destekt ein and dacheinatzo.

Presenter29:24

Lottalenia as Jenny singing part of Meine Herren Meiner Mutte Pregte from Act Two of Mahagoni, with the orchestra of the North German Radio Chorus conducted by Wilhelm Bruckner Rugeberg.

Presenter29:35

You've gone on being a designer, as I've said, all of these years, best part of fifty years, and occasionally these days you direct as well. But you've often complained over the years that designers are are under-recognized. I'm sure not you now, because you have such a reputation, but you've said before that designers are often made to feel always like the T-boy. Why do you think that is?

Ralph Koltai29:55

Well, I think this is a particular British characteristic.

Ralph Koltai29:59

By nature the British I really find the visual art somewhat suspect, and we are very much concerned with the spoken word. And so one tends to consider that directors as sort of people chosen by God to descend upon this earth to be superior to everybody else. And so designers are pushed a bit. And l lately they have come to more to the fore. I think of late it's been recognized that designers make quite a major contribution and are not just carrying out the instructions of the director.

Presenter30:30

And when you direct, do you design as well?

Ralph Koltai30:32

Oh, yes. But what is quite interesting is you have a conversation it's quite fascinating. You have a conversation with yourself and the director in you always wins.

Presenter30:43

Echo number seven.

Ralph Koltai30:46

Oh, well, Dori Preven.

Ralph Koltai30:49

is another

Ralph Koltai30:50

singer, really not all that unrelated musically to Edith Piev, whose whose whose songs and whose voice I absolutely love, and trying to find the right song for this particular programme, well, I think the audience by now will have got the hang of me.

Ralph Koltai31:08

I chose Lover Lover Be My Cover.

Speaker 431:16

Till the night begins to fade.

Speaker 431:20

Yeah.

Speaker 431:22

So I had danced with.

Speaker 431:24

Love a lover.

Speaker 431:27

I'm afraid to fall asleep the night is dark and

Speaker 431:33

And I am so afraid to sleep.

Presenter31:38

Yeah.

Speaker 431:38

To fall asleep.

Presenter31:38

Sleep

Presenter31:42

Dorry Previn and Lover, Lover be my cover. It's um it's a quite a sexy song, and if the audience, as you put it, have got uh the hang of you by now, they'll understand, I think, that women and romance have played quite a large part in your life.

Ralph Koltai31:54

I think you can say that, yes.

Presenter31:55

So cast away on a desert island would be a terrible cruelty. Um but I I suppose you could m m m m manage to manufacture a bit of you know, something to live under, something a little curtain you could put up, couldn't you?

Ralph Koltai32:07

I I I think I've probably managed like

Ralph Koltai32:11

As all the colleagues have been on that same desert island, yes, probably, yes.

Presenter32:16

And you're seventy three, as I say. Do you anticipate ever stopping work?

Ralph Koltai32:20

Oh no, oh no, no, no, I don't. I d um as long as health permits, I will continue, yeah, because it's not a job, it's something that is part of part of your life. And as long as I can make discoveries, or think I can make discoveries, I sh I shall go on, yeah. So what have you got lined up? Three Shakespeare's starting with Midsummer Night's Dream in um Copenhagen. Um a Dalibor Smetener Opera at the Edinburgh Festival for Scottish Opera.

Ralph Koltai32:53

And a production of Nabucco.

Ralph Koltai32:56

At the

Ralph Koltai32:58

out uh at the arena theater in

Ralph Koltai33:01

In Orange, north north of Marseilles.

Presenter33:04

So you're quite busy?

Ralph Koltai33:05

I'm kinda quite busy here.

Presenter33:07

Last record.

Ralph Koltai33:09

Well, another rather wonderfully romantic area.

Ralph Koltai33:14

Um Violetta saying farewell, act three.

Ralph Koltai33:19

Auverdis La Traviata, which in fact is one of the operas I directed.

Ralph Koltai33:24

And here the aria is being sung by none other than Maria Callas.

Presenter34:29

Maria Callas as Violetta saying her farewells, adio de passato, in act three of Verdi's La Traviata, with the orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini in nineteen fifty five. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Ralph, which would it be?

Ralph Koltai34:47

Or I'd take um the Brochwallen concerto.

Presenter34:50

Yeah.

Ralph Koltai34:51

Rather than the vocal music, I think that would be my my my choice, yes.

Presenter34:56

What about your book?

Ralph Koltai34:58

I think I might take um a dictionary with me so that I could try and improve my foreign language. It's probably the French dictionary I'd take with me so that I could improve my French in the hope that I'm going to get rescued.

Presenter35:11

And what about your luxury?

Ralph Koltai35:13

Well, what I don't know whether that is permissible, but my luxury

Ralph Koltai35:17

Would be a puma. All my life I've wanted to have a puma.

Presenter35:21

You can't, because it's like you can have a dead puma.

Ralph Koltai35:24

I'm not allowed to have it I'm not allowed to have it puma.

Presenter35:25

I'm not a lad.

Presenter35:27

Nothing animate, I'm afraid.

Ralph Koltai35:29

Well, in that case...

Ralph Koltai35:31

I suppose I have to take my cigars with me.

Presenter35:34

Ralph Colt, I hope you enjoy them. Thank you very much indeed for letting us see your desert island discs.

Speaker 235:46

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.