Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1974 - 11

THE DESIGN TECHNIQUES OF GABOR FORRAY·
NATIONAL OPERA, BUDAPEST.
GLENN M. LONEY

BROOKLYN COllEGE

In his sunny Budapest design studio, Gabor Forray
thu mped away at a costume plate with the side of his
palm. His right hand was smeared with rich purple
printer's ink and the palm left a series of interesting color
textures on the wet plate. Then Forray, obviously
delighted to be able to show off the variations possible in
his technique, used a sharp fingernail to etch in a facial
detail.
It is not exactly finger-painting; it's a lot more than
that, actually, but it does give the designer the same sense
of freedom, of discovery that small children have
experienced, getting their hands into the wet paint.
Gabor Forray is the chief scenic designer for the
Hungarian National Opera's two great theatres in
Budapest. He is, in fact, the only resident scenic designer,
and most of the company's seventy productions in the
current repertory are his. Some operas are designed by
other talented Hungarian artists, but the special visual
quality which distingu ishes most of the stagings at the
ninety year old National Opera and the newer Erkel
Theatre is the product of Forray's fertile brain and his
nimble hands.
Recently, Forray agreed to show this writer how he
develops his design ideas and some of his working
methods. His two story studio is high up in the rear of the
ornate neo baroque opera house. On the stage left side, it
is next to the scenery construction shop and the pa inting
studio in a loft above that. Outside the studio, in the long
corridor which separates the shop complex from the
stagehouse, there are iron traps in the floor. Raised, these
permit finished scenery from the paint loft above to be
lowered down to the stage. Beyond the large sunlit shops
are smaller workrooms for sculptors, who work in foam
and celastic, and for costume designers and bu ilders. Thus,
Forray is in close contact with all aspects of opera design
and at all stages of progress toward a finished production
on the stage below, or at the sister opera house.
Forray's studio has, on its first level, some comfortable
sofas and chairs and a small table for conferences and
comradeship. At one side are cupboards jammed with
del icate models of past productions. Shelves are filled
with art books and magazines, which spill out onto the
floor, where Forray has been rummaging through them,
hunting for a design idea. Trays slide out to reveal
hundreds of sketches and finished renderings from both
operas and dramas, since the designer by no means limits
himself to the National Opera.
The space was a bit cramped during our interview, and
not only because of the furniture and clutter of art books.

~

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

G~bor Forray at His Work Table

Photo by Glenn Loney

One corner was occupied by a large gray scenic projector.
It was a product of the Austrian firm of PAN I and an
excellent projector, as Forray readily pointed out. But it
has one shortcoming. Its lens had been designed for a
house with a very deep stage. Unfortunately, the Erkel
Theatre, where it will be used in a new production of an
early Verdi opera, I Lombardi, has a stage only ten meters
deep. There are some eighteen meters of cyc to be
covered. An expert of the Hungarian optical industry had
recently visited the studio to see if a different lens could
be used. The prognosis, Forray said, was hopeful.
For the twenty-eight scenes of I Lombardi, Forray
planned to create some ninety projector slides. Four of
the PANI projectors will be used, covering the entire cyc
and fading various scenes in and out. The line and colors
of G iotto frescoes were sel ected by Forray as the v isua I
concept for sets, slides, and costumes. He riffled through
some plates he had finished. The feeling of Giotto was
certainly there, but there was also a unique vigor and
impulsiveness in the line and a more electric quality in the
color than that associated with the works of G iotto.
There was an almost luminous quality in some of the

OCTOBER. 1974

11
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