Родословие на либретото на„Янините девет братя"
Genealogy of the Libretto "Yana's Nine Brothers"

Summary/Abstract: Presenting my views as a producer on the verbal text of the opera, defended in my staging at the Rouse City Opera in 1984, I am participating in the incessant discussions about the libretto of “Yana’s Nine Brothers”, which started as early as the 30s of last century. The opera is built upon three text bases: a wide range of folk songs from different historical times; the story by Nickola Vesselinov, published in the journal “Zlatorog” in 1927; the libretto itself, upon which Lyubomir Pipkov and Nickola Vesselinov have worked. The time schemes of the verbal content of the opera are three as well: “no time” folklore-mythological; concrete-historical coming from the story; allegoric­ historical with allusions for the time of writing the opera. And this parallel action of the bases and the temporal schemes ultimately results in their complete absorption in the impact of a depressing “no time” period. The stage realization assumes the significance of apocalypses, in which the termination of Yana’s family is the termination of the Bulgarian people- symbolism clearly expressed at the end of Vesselinov’s story: “... the house burned down, the wind blew away the ashes. No trace of it remained.” The genre interpretation of the opera in the Rouse staging is in the direction of “dramatic ballad” expressing the dominating powerful feeling of a curse predetermining the fate of the Bulgarians in their private and social lives. Like some oracles Pipkov and Vesselinov mythologized in the libretto the story of Yana’s nine brothers, turning it into an allegory about the historical lot of the Bulgarian.

• Details
• Contents