KAZANOVA - through the eyes of the authors
News публикувана на: 10.02.2017
Go back
The premiere of the musical "Casanova" on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera
On 14 February, at 19.00, the Stara Zagora State Opera will present for the first time to the Stara Zagora audience the musical "Casanova" to music by Georgi Kostov and lyrics by Yuri Dachev. Directed by Ognyan Draganov, conducted by Vladimir Boshnakov, set and costume design by Ivan Tokadzhiev.
What accounts for the enduring curiosity about the personality of the legendary 18th-century hero Casanova, what provokes artists to return to his stories and carry them with ease into different eras, what are the life lessons that are invariably present in every creative impulse on the theme of Casanova...
Love drama, farce or comedy - the musical "Casanova" through the eyes of the creators: the author of the text - playwright Yuri Dachev, composer Georgi Kostov and director Ognyan Draganov.
Composer Georgi Kostov
"After the successful presentation of the musical 'THE FOUR CLINES' the Director of the Musical Theatre - prof. Svetozar Donev invited me to write a musical for adults and during a conversation with us and the playwright Yuri Dachev the idea to create a work based on the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova was born. The libretto was ready and then I started writing. But I kept hearing my song "To Crave You," which had become popular at that time. I said to myself, I don't have a more loving melody than that, and it became the light theme of the work, which was completed and staged in 2002 at the Musical Theatre."
Georgi Kostov graduated with honors from the composition class of prof. Pancho Vladigerov in 1966, and was immediately invited to become an assistant professor of Harmony at the BDK. Since 1977 he has been Associate Professor and since 1985 Professor of Harmony and Composition at the National Academy of Music. From 1989 to 2008 he was Rector of the Academy, and in 1995-96 he was Minister of Culture. He has been awarded many national and international prizes, orders and medals. He has written chamber operas, musicals, ballets, symphonic and chamber works, songs such as "I Crave You", "I Can't Do Without Radio", "The Gardens of Love", "Stay", children's songs such as "My Childhood", "Praise Be Bunny", "We All Know", etc. His piano piece "Compulsive Movement" has just been performed at Carnegie Hall /USA/.
The author of the text - Yuri Dachev
"Few myths can hope for a secured future like that of Casanova. The explanation is so simple that it is perhaps unnecessary to point it out - amorous adventures will never cease to arouse curiosity. So too will new literary interpretations continue to join the scores of authors who have summoned Casanova onto screen, stage, and page. Casanova is nobody's. Just as he cannot be owned by just one woman, neither does he belong to just one era or genre. In working on the libretto 15 years ago, I followed the same pattern as many others - facts from Casanova's biography and particular events he wrote about in his memoirs are interwoven with fiction. Two things interested me - that the lover of all time, the symbol of male freedom, was constantly pursued: by lusty women, by voyeurs, by evil and inept law enforcers, by secret agents, by whomever. This vindictiveness of the neglected and the untalented in love is something that underlines Casanova's exceptionalism; it's funny, but it's more than that. The other is that Casanova, though possessed of inexhaustible talent for love, is but one man standing against a monstrous, rampant, insatiable insufficiency of love that all ages have known...
One of Casanova's biographers, Derek Parker, mentions that Casanova called his carriage "Solitude." I don't know if it's true or fiction, but I'm convinced we'll continue to look after it, eyes watering with smoldering and understandable, if not entirely justified, envy."
Yuri Dachev is the author of plays, adaptations and screenplays for documentaries and feature films, his best known theatrical titles being Alangle, Boarding Dogs, Yesterday's Kisses, Lament Lounge, Honorable Killings, The Penultimate Handout /Dame of Spades/ and others. Among the films in which he has participated as a screenwriter are "Boarding for Dogs", "The World is Big and Salvation is Everywhere", ""Journey to Jerusalem", "The Adventures of a Harlequin", "Balkan Rhapsody" , "Barter" and others. Among his ten books, the most popular are the biography of Stoyanka Mutafova "When the Ants Are Trimmed" and Grigor Vachkov's "Messenger of Men's Times". Sarafov, playwright of the Small City Theatre /behind the canal/. For 11 years he has been leading the weekly program for BNT2 and BNT World "Recipe for Culture".
The director Ognian Draganov
"In the musical "Casanova" the main character is the famous lover Casanova - a legendary figure from the 18th century - a man with diverse interests - merchant, politician, diplomat, philosopher, poet, writer, wrote several plays and over twenty books, most of all known as the great lover of Venice. In our story we look at this man from a slightly different angle. Every man dreams of embodying in his own life the man who has become a symbol - the male seducer Casanova. The director's gaze ironizes pure male vanity, passes through comedy and even reaches the grotesque in the finale. At the heart of the musical is the text, which is developed in the show in its second plan - quite ironically. A text that is based on Casanova's autobiographical work, namely "The Story of My Life", in which he immortalises his amorous adventures. There are many love scenes in the plot of the musical that are revealed in hyperbolized form. Love is not only expressed through the physical contact between the characters, it is revealed in a sought after deliberately exaggerated version. As in Mozart's Don Giovanni, so in Georgi Kostov's Casanova there is no scene in which a physical act takes place. There are alternating situations in which Casanova plans and arranges his trysts, and at the end of each - receives a refusal from the courted ladies. The protagonist Marcella is a nun secretly in love with him. Casanova makes a date with her as well, but in the end he is left alone with his violin to continue giving love through music. Last but not least, the predominant characters in the musical are musicians - Casanova is a musician, there are four violin heroines, a cellist, a chorus of nuns, a merchant, and a former musician. The desire of the creative team is that in this musical people have fun, the narrative is comedic and the show ends very quickly. It is about the love that all the ladies want to bestow on Casanova, and he in turn reciprocates with the same. On Valentine's Day, we hope to carry this sentiment to the audience in the auditorium and have a good time together.
The takeaway: every man wants to be a Casanova, but often times overestimates his capabilities.
I believe people will feel our 'wink' to the stories of this iconic 18th century hero."
Ognyan Draganov graduated from the Secondary Music School "Hristina Morfova" Stara Zagora with trumpet. He studied opera directing at New Bulgarian University - two semesters in the class of prof. Vanya Bachvarova. She completed a course in opera directing at OPERA DU RHIN Strasbourg, France, as assistant director to the world famous opera director Albert-André Leroux. He graduated from the State Music Academy "Pancho Vladigerov" Sofia - specialty in opera direction in the class of prof. Pavel Gerdzhikov. He gained his professional experience at the Sofia Opera, where he was successively assistant director, assistant director, director and deputy director in the period 1998-2002. His ascending career as an opera director started in 2002 - he staged with great success in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Colombia and Russia. For five seasons he was the chief director of the Sarajevo Opera. Over 30 titles can be read in his biography, most of which he has staged many times. The director considers his greatest achievement to be his encounter with the Russian classics - the operas Eugene Onegin and Dame of Spades, which he staged in Sarajevo and St. Petersburg. Among his recent engagements are the stagings of the operas Don Giovanni and Gianni Schicchi in distant Colombia, where he is already known for his productions of the operas Ball with Masks, Lucia di Lammermoor, Norma, and in 2015 - he staged The Handmaid's Tale in Slovenia, and at the end of 2015 he staged the unique performance of Donizetti's opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" on the stage of the Stara Zagora Opera House - the creative team of the performance received the "Stara Zagora" grand prize celebration in May 2016, and in September - the "Crystal Lyre" of Radio Classic FM and SBTMD. Ognyan Draganov was awarded with the annual prize "The Golden Pen" 2016 of Classic FM Radio and Maktas Gallery.
Ognyan Draganov has been the chief director of the Rousse Opera for three seasons. From 29 April 2015 he took over as interim director of the Stara Zagora Opera. From the end of August 2016 - was officially appointed as the director of the Stara Zagora Opera after winning a competition.