"Troubadour" for the first time in Stara Zagora in 1927.
News публикувана на: 12.05.2015
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"Troubadour" for the first time in Stara Zagora in 1927.
Since Monday the intensive rehearsals for the upcoming premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's great opera "Il Trovatore" have started - on May 22 and 25 on the stage of the State Opera Stara Zagora. The production will feature several debuts - of Georgi Dinev as director of an opera title, of Boris Taskov as Manrico, of Gergana Rusekova as Azucena. On Thursday will be the first rehearsal of Maestro Martin Panteleev with the orchestra of the State Opera-Stara Zagora. This is also his first appearance as conductor of an opera in the City of Lime Trees and Straight Streets. Ivan Kabamitov and in the role of Count di Luna, in which he last appeared in 2010. Perhaps the "most consistent" figure in the production is Alexander Marulev as Ferrando - in all the recent productions of the Stara Zagora Opera.
When was this opera by the great Verdi first staged in Stara Zagora? We present to your attention a part of the report of Emilia Žunić, PhD, "Verdi at the Stara Zagora Opera", presented at the anniversary conference "Viva Verdi", on 9.10.2013 in the Great Hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and published in History magazine, issue 6, 2013. The text contains countless curious details about the first production many, many, many years ago....
"......The year was 1927. Enthused by the success of "Gergana", encouraged by the warm reception of the audience, enchanted by Maestro Atanasov's radiant smile and cordial attitude, the members of the Kaval Musical Society proceeded to the next production. "What courage - from a household opera, close and native, suddenly a task that required from us a 180-degree turn. And we did it." exclaims Mara Shopov - the first director - after almost four decades with justified pride.
The Society's leadership was aware that the task was too difficult for a "young, not yet strengthened collective", but it immediately set about acquiring musical material, doing its best to increase the performing personnel (especially the choir and orchestra), sending invitations to all the secular and church choirs in the city, to individual instrumentalists. Zlatan Stanchev, as he did for "Gergana", immediately set to work on writing out sharps for the orchestra and choir, applying the text in Bulgarian to the keyboards, and preparing the soloists. This time Stefan Georgiev is responsible for the choir, Hristo Manikov for the orchestra.
There are no funds for sets, costumes, props, no qualified personnel to make them, the rehearsal rooms are insufficient. And the performers - they are doctors, lawyers, teachers, clerks who rehearse in the evenings, after work. They also involve their relatives - wives, sisters, daughters. Having won the confidence of the citizenry, the Society receives from the merchants both timber and cloth - albeit the cheapest. This time, alas (!), costumes from the surrounding villages cannot be used.
The armour and helmets of the men's choir are made... out of cardboard! The soldiers' dressing gowns - knitted from twine in the county prison workshop - are so successful that they are used in later productions, now by the State Opera. The artist Toma Grigorov made enormous efforts to create a set, costume and props characteristic of the dark Middle Ages. Having traveled the villages so many times to procure what he needed for "Gergana", the indefatigable Zlatan Stanchev now tours the gypsy neighborhood. (Has anyone ever considered the fact that, among other things, this is an extremely strong advertising element!? Later, gypsies were frequent visitors to the saloon - especially when "Troubadour" was performed - during the original period.)
On April 24, 1927, the curtain rises on the enthusiasts' second premiere. "Troubadour," anticipated with great interest by the citizenry, was successfully performed. The role of Manrico was played by Georgi Batalov, Leonora by Nikka Hadjimiteva, the Count di Luna by Peter Totev, already known to the public as Nicola, Gergana and Grandfather Nedyalko, and Azucena was entrusted to Sia Kyusteleva, who had so far only performed in the chorus.
"Troubadour" proves to be quite a difficult task - not only in terms of preparation, but also in terms of delivery. The entire "stage staff" is ... a single stagehand and changing 8 pictures is an impossible task. Despite the willingness of the performers themselves to assist in the replacement and construction of the set, the performance usually lasts more than 4 hours. Confusions sometimes occur, which adds to the interludes. When the 50th anniversary of the fighting at Shipka was celebrated in the summer of 1927 and the Russian soldiers who had taken part in the defence of the legendary peak were invited to the celebrations, the Society gave a performance in their honour, Troubadour. Probably the speeches and greetings were not short at all. Many of the veterans were probably attending an opera performance for the first time in their lives at all. And they were both old and tired. The performance - when it was over, it was already getting dark outside, and the streets were filled with shouts of "warm patties, warm milling"... In spite of everything, in a very short time, Troubadour performed 14 times."
Stara Zagora State Opera