Бягство чрез жанра с „БЯГСТВО В РОПОТАМО” (1970)
A genre flight with Flight to the Ropotamo (1970)

Summary/Abstract: The paper is part of a study by the same author dealing with the earliest Bulgarian musical films produced by the authorities under communism. Made in 1970, Rangel Vulchanov’s musical based on a romantic-adventurous plot and abounding in songs and dances (music by Ivan Staykov, choreography by Bogdan Kovachev) was promoted by the media as the first Bulgarian musical feature film. Indeed, the impulse to flee the conventional everyday grind can be traced at all levels of the production: from the building of the storyline and the active plot to the cinematic rationalisation of individual episodes and scenes including songs, actor’s gesture and plasticity, various ensemble dances with a stylish choreographic solution. In a general sense though, the keyword flight predetermines entirely the behaviour of a couple of romantic characters in the context of the comically covert conflict between the individual and the society: their attempt at ‘purification’ through another kind of communication in the non-urban scenery on the banks of the Ropotamo. Ivan Staykov’s music was composed mainly in the vein of the festival Bulgarian pop songs of the 1960s and the 1970s, applying the principle of improvisational variations (especially in the parts of purely orchestral episodes or offscreen reminiscences, related to various situations. Furthermore, variation is the general compositional approach adopted in the cinematic rationalisation of the songs, where each further repetition relies not only on typical emotional nuances in the arrangement ​but also on respective changes in the meaning of the lyrics, rendering them the necessary association with certain screen representation. The most memorable in this respect are the variations of the leit- theme ‘Moments come unexpectedly...’ (lyrics by Rangel Vulchanov and Ivan Staykov), performing also the function of a musical envelope. The same is true of the love ballad/duet The Two Banks (lyrics by Marko Ganchev), which at the time topped the charts.

• Details
• Contents