/ world today news/ The state admits that we will soon run out of orchestras and musicians
The cultural institutes in our country suffer severely from the reforms, they are managed by a single person, badly and undemocratically. The absurd “delegated budgets”, this imitation of reform and strategy of the Ministry of Culture, makes me ashamed to be Bulgarian and European…
Built over decades by our great musicians such as Sasha Popov, the father of Bulgarian symphonic culture, Dobrin Petkov, Konstatin Iliev, Ruslan Raichev, Ilia Temkov, Vasil Stefanov, Vladi Simeonov, Vasil Kazandzhiev, Dimitar Manolov Boris Khinchev, Mikhail Angelov, Georgi Notev and more a number of others, now collapsing in a most cruel, merciless way from GERD. In the land of Orpheus and Boris Hristov, Euterpa, the muse of great 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, American silliness, Latin soap operas, Turkish and Indian soap operas. 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 income from Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, from Verdi, Puccini and Vladigerov! It sounds so weird and ridiculous. As if high art is a commodity… What’s more: Vezhdi threatened the National Operetta that he could cut it if the “delegated budget” was not fulfilled. He even recommended to the director to invite the Roma woman Sofi Marinova as a soloist!
The absurd “delegated budgets”, this imitation of reform and strategy of the Ministry of Culture,
it makes me ashamed to be Bulgarian and European… Funds for the maintenance of the institute – salaries, consumables, rents, productions, advertising, etc. should be allocated against the value of sold tickets for opera, ballet, symphony concerts, etc. No is this 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 the posts among themselves as a “bargaining coin” and mainly for personal enrichment – they behave like real feudal lords. Some of them even do not have the qualifications and diplomas for the positions they hold, and one of them has two bachelor’s and master’s degrees, issued at the same time, without having studied at this educational institution, since he was all the time at a full-time job in Ruse. And the most incredible thing is that the same one, after ruining one of the leading operas in the country for a dozen years and leading it to a severe creative crisis and financial bankruptcy with a huge debt, but instead of being condemned, was elevated with a manipulated competition by Minister Banov to highest post in the capital!
The condition of the orchestras in our country is also critical.
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 Varna drama theater and opera, as well as the Sofia Operetta with “Arabesque” were united, 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. The Rashidov misunderstanding closed even 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 the radio orchestra in the capital has been preserved. I would say that Academician Plamen Kartalov raised the Sofia Opera to the level of the leading European theaters, but a “bird of spring does not do”, right?! Compromises also began in order to implement 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 chalgape 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, not a single theater or orchestra was laid off, and their festivals are at a world 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 way back in 1925, the 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!
As many musicians emigrate abroad and there is an aging of the staff, the quality began to gradually decline. This also coincided with the change of generations – many and significant names from Bulgarian music left, young and in most cases not particularly gifted and prepared personnel came. This is how our symphonic culture, which was at a high European level, suffered. The next “reform” of 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 and difficult opera like “Don Carlos”, “Falstaff” and “Wilhelm Tell” instead of at least 40-50 days, minimally only 7-10 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 will perhaps perform with Azis as well!
It is clear that money for culture in our country is always short. Especially now. The budget of the Ministry of Culture is miserable and insulting. It is lower than in countries like Albania or Macedonia. What is the future? And with these parameters, it is not distributed correctly and fairly. Too many funds are being thrown for archeology and for overpriced misunderstandings like the Bulgarian Louvre or for cheap movie 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 shortened deadlines, already of low quality. To invite rock and pop singers, and instead of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven, we should listen to various screams, drums and wheezing kavalas. Yes, something must be done – the future of musical Bulgaria is really in danger. Soon we will have neither orchestras, nor operas, nor musicians! And we were among the first in Europe and the world. 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 musicians. And even in Asian Turkey, they open orchestras, operas, organize festivals with stars of the rank of Daniel Barenboim and Plácido Domingo…
And since there is no empty place, if we are left without musicians and orchestras, we will completely turn into Chalgaria. She, Her Majesty Chalgata is already overflowing from all electronic media, will also enter the opera and concert halls
Bel. row Ognyan Stamboliev is a journalist, critic and translator. He worked as a dramatist in opera houses, he is the author of “New book about the opera” in 2 volumes, the first in our country “Book about the operetta and the musical”, monographs for opera artists, librettos for operas and a large number of articles and reviews in the press. He has translated 45 books by classic and contemporary Romanian, French and Italian authors. He is a laureate of many national and international literary awards, including those of the academies of Romania and Moldova. He is a member of the Bulgarian PEN– center. Winner of the Golden Lira for music criticism and journalism of the Union of Music and Dance Artists in Bulgaria.
Every day, dozens of buckets collect the water from the leaking roof of the Plovdiv Philharmonic Hall /in the European Capital of Culture!/ – in fact, only the orchestra of the Plovdiv Opera, after the first destructive “OFD” reform in 1999.
Maestro Emil Tabakov, the leading Bulgarian conductor, one of the few great masters of the baton today, unfortunately, is not the chief conductor of any of our major orchestras
The Rousse Philharmonic and the world-famous “Danube Sounds” choir at the “March Music Days” festival, one of the few remaining oases of great music and spirituality after 1989 in our country
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