Ralph Koltai

Ralph Koltai CBE, RDI (31 July 1924 – 15 December 2018), was a German-born, naturalised British stage designer, who worked as associate designer of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and latterly as a sculptor.

Early life Koltai was born on 31 July 1924, in Berlin, Germany, to a family of Jewish descent. He was the only child of a Hungarian-born doctor Alfred and his wife Charlotte (née Weinstein) Koltai who was German. Their son was on the Kindertransport from Brussels to England in 1939. His parents survived the Holocaust; his mother was able to settle in Britain, while his father began again in Cuba. Koltai worked as a translator at the Nuremberg trials and later for the British Intelligence Corps as an investigator of war crimes. His military service ended in 1948. In 1963, for the RSC at the Aldwych Theatre, London, he set Rolf Hochhuth's The Deputy (also known as The Representative), about Pope Pius XII's connection to the Nazis. He later commented: "My concept was to set it in a gas chamber that was also the Pope’s study—it showed that the Vatican and the extermination chambers were part of each other." One of these creations, a tree root, was surrounded by water in his stage design for Samuel West's revival of Howard Brenton's The Romans in Britain at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2006. National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1173/01) with Koltai in 2002–2003 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library. Koltai also took part in Rambert's 90th anniversary oral history project, talking about his work for dance.

The year before his death, Koltai was interviewed for TheatreVOICE at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Heather Neill. Of his career, he said “Whatever talent I had, it was instinct; I’ve never made a decision. I often arrive at the resolution by accident. The talent that I have is to recognise the accident when it happens.”

Honours Koltai was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1983 New Year Honours and was recognised as a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) by the Royal Society of Arts in 1984.

Death At the end of his life, Koltai lived at "Le Bas-Foncluse" farm in La Celle-Guenand in France. He died on 15 December 2018, at the age of 94, at Châtellerault.