/ world today news/ Can you imagine income from Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, from Verdi, Puccini and Prokofiev?
– For nearly 30 years now, we have been talking about a crisis in culture, especially in music?
What was built for decades by our great musicians such as Sasha Popov, the father of Bulgarian symphony, Dobrin Petkov, Konstatin Iliev, Ruslan Raichev, Ilia Temkov, Vasil Stefanov, Vasil Kazandzhiev, Dimitar Manolov, Georgi Notev and many others, is now crumbling one by one – cruel, merciless manner. In the land of Orpheus and Boris Hristov, Euterpa, the muse of art music, is already out of favor. I will remind you that after the two wars in the first half of the last century, in the difficult and poor years, the state decided that culture was among the priorities in the development of Bulgaria. In a 1959 issue of “Theatre” magazine, I discovered that there were state drama theaters, imagine in… Troyan and Novi Pazar! In our country, in every county town, in addition to a theater, there was an orchestra (state or municipal), a music festival and a music stage. Today, most of them are gone.
-Two senseless, destructive reforms marked the beginning of the end. In our country, which has only been collapsing lately, everything is piling up in Sofia, and the culture in the country, with few exceptions, is barely scratched. As if the Bulgarians “outside the capital”, that’s how some journalists, sick of “sophiocentrism” (we also have an absurd term “outside the capital” theaters and orchestras), are second-rate. They have no access to the true values in art, to great music. For them, there remains only Her Majesty Chalgata, flowing like a stream from the hundreds of radios and cable companies, the lowest genres, the American silliness, the Latin soap operas, the Indian
and the Turkish series. And all this under the watchful eye of the Electronic Media Council. The Ministry of Culture threatens to lay off even the oldest and largest ensembles. Why? Because they didn’t bring income?! Can you imagine earnings from Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, from Verdi, Puccini and Prokofiev! It sounds so ridiculous. As if high art is a commodity…
– Do you? The absurd “delegated budgets”, this imitation of reform and strategy of the Ministry of Culture, it makes me ashamed to be Bulgarian and European… Against the value of sold tickets for opera, ballet, symphony concert, funds should be allocated for the maintenance of the institute – salaries, consumables, rents, staging, advertising, etc. Isn’t that ridiculous? A real absurdity! Does this exist in cultural Europe? And there the tradition is longer (they were not under Turkish rule) and people know how to make culture. The Ministry of Culture insists that they took this model from Germany. Yes, but the German Minister of Culture refuted this lie! Unfortunately, in our Ministry of Culture, there have been no suitable specialists for a long time, and no ideas. Not to mention the level of the ministers… In 1999 they created the first misunderstanding that marked the beginning of the end. Minister Moskova, supported by Ivan Kostov, without consulting the public, parliament, creative unions and musicians, imposed the first so-called “OFD reform”. (Opera-Philharmonic Society). Thus, after a forced mechanical unification, without a plan, without discussion and without a defined status, the opera houses and the philharmonics were shoved under one hat, supposedly for efficiency, successful management, economies and better quality. Unlimited power was given to the directors, the absolutely necessary artistic councils were liquidated. Now the institutes are managed by a single person, poorly and undemocratically. There are no artistic councils, there is no control from the Ministry, the opinion of the creative unions is not respected. Most directors use their positions for personal enrichment and behave like actual feudal lords. Some of them even do not have the qualifications and diplomas for the positions held, and one of them has two bachelor’s and master’s degrees, issued at the same time, without having studied at this educational institution. And the most incredible thing is that the same person, after ruining one of the leading operas in the country for ten years and leading it to a creative crisis and financial bankruptcy, instead of being condemned, was promoted to a higher position in the capital by Rashidov and Banov!
– Of the two orchestras in the big cities / Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna and Burgas/ one remained for opera, operetta, symphony, ballet, cantata-oratorio music. On the other hand, the “delegated absurdities” reduced symphony concerts to a minimum, and now even in the most musical cities such as Ruse and Plovdiv, their number is minimal. The operas also suffered a lot. In an illogical way, the drama theater and the opera of Varna were united, as well as the Operetta in Sofia with “Arabesque”, the Turkish amateur theaters were preserved, probably for the DPS campaigns in Razgrad and Kardzhali, and they were attached to the drama theaters bearing the names of Anton Strashimirov and Dimitar Dimov. Two important theaters for our cultural policy were liquidated – the Rhodope Drama Theater and the Silistren Theater. Then they recovered through the intervention of far-sighted deputies. Minister Rashidov even closed the emblematic, oldest capital theater “Tear and Laughter”, and a profitable one at that. All this led to a serious crisis. And it has been going on for 25 years now. Only the high level of the national opera and radio orchestra was preserved.
Compromises began in order to carry out the plan – pop, jazz and rock singers with symphony orchestras, cheap Hollywood musicals and other titles of similar low quality and debasement of the repertoire, hence the level of the audience. Ex-minister Rashidov recommended the National Operetta to invite the chalga singer Sofi Marinova! Part of the audience withdrew, others were not attracted, especially the young, who in our country have seriously moved away from the true values in art, and the outflow of musicians began. The orchestral ensembles, to the extent that they still exist, have become obsolete, their quality has declined. Musician pay is insultingly measly. There is nothing like it in the world: 300-400 BGN, as much as street sweepers. Recently, our famous “Sofia soloists” went on strike because of their salaries of 340 BGN. And it will happen that soon there will be no musicians either, because many instrumentalists no longer reach the big cities, but emigrate abroad. Every year dozens of young musical talents emigrate. Not to mention that the smaller orchestras, to the extent they survived, cut them in half! In neighboring Romania, they did not lay off a single theater or orchestra, and their festivals are world-class level (the Bucharest “Enescu” welcomes 15 world orchestras – from Boston to Tokyo! – in just one edition!) In our country, fifteen years ago, Minister Znepolski proposed the closure of the wonderful Stara Zagora Opera House, the oldest after the capital’s, established in 1925. center of the only opera festival in the Balkans. In fact, it was recently threatened by the until recently Minister Rashidov, along with the unique dance theater “Arabesque”, our National Operetta and the Music and Drama Theater of our old capital Veliko Tarnovo. Imagine because you had not fulfilled the “delegated budgets”! And after this scandal, he “generously” forgave their “debts” and just pissed them off! His successor Banov continued the same line. It’s a pity that, unlike Vezhdi, he worked in the theater.
The quality began to gradually decline. This also coincided with the change of generations – many, and at the same time, significant names from Bulgarian music left, young and in most cases not particularly gifted and prepared personnel came. Thus, our symphonic culture, which was at a high European level, suffered most seriously. We were proud of her, and rightfully so! The next “reform” of the first cabinet of GERB with Minister Rashidov destroyed the symphonic work in our country. The ill-fated opera-philharmonic societies disbanded to liquidate their philharmonic departments and leave only the operatic departments. In one of the big cities, famous for its famous international music festival, a premiere symphony program even with music by Mahler or Bruckner is done instead of a week in a day and a half, and a big opera like “Don Carlos”, “Falstaff” and “Wilhelm Tell” ” instead of at least 30-40 days, minimum only 7-8 days. These productions are played several times, then others are made to account for both the number and the plan, and the creative work put into them is not even morally rewarded! Symphony orchestras, like dramatic theaters, began to make unforgivable repertoire compromises. They went so far as to give concerts with pop and jazz singers and musicians, and so instead of raising the level of the audience, it is already lowered. And the great Chekhov said: “It is not Gogol who should descend to the people, but the people should rise to Gogol”. After one of the orchestras in our country has performed a concert with Sofi Marinova, another one may soon perform with Azis as well! We have already reached the bottom with this “reform”…
– It is clear that money for culture in our country is always short. Especially now, under the management of GERB. The budget of the Ministry of Culture is miserable and insulting. It is lower than in countries like Albania or Macedonia. But even with these parameters, it is not distributed correctly and fairly. Too many funds are thrown for archeology and for overpriced misunderstandings such as the Bulgarian Louvre or for shoddy film productions. And most of all for the capital, and culture in the country, especially in small towns, has been reduced to a beggar’s stick. It’s as if there aren’t people living there who also need art and spirituality. And another thing that is not appreciated: “delegated budgets” have led to an increase in quantity at the expense of quality. Thus, operas and orchestras began to produce five times more new production in abbreviated deadlines with low quality. Something must be done – the future of musical Bulgaria is really in danger. Soon we will have neither orchestras, nor operas, nor musicians! Our young instrumentalists are emigrating en masse, gifted opera singers are also leaving the country. In a number of operas and orchestras in the country, the compositions are filled with foreign artists. And in China, where in Mao’s time they broke records with music by Mozart and Beethoven, and also in Asian Turkey, they opened orchestras, operas, held festivals with stars of the rank of Domingo and Barenboim…
P.P. Recently, the Prime Minister stated that he would allocate 100 million for a new stadium in the capital. Interesting from his pocket? Unfortunately, he does not know that the opera houses in the two largest cities in our country, Plovdiv and Varna, do not have their own buildings, that Plovdiv does not have a building for an art gallery, that the roofs of the National Library in Sofia, the City Gallery and the Opera House in Ruse are leaking that valuable cultural monuments are being demolished throughout the country…
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