The gala concert of the Sofia Opera dedicated to great Bulgarian conductor Ruslan Raichev presented excerpts of works that he conducted on stage all over the world. Before the concert started the audience saw a documentary created by his son Peter Raichev.

“I knew that with him I was in safe hands; that he would not let me fall, nor betray me. I felt loved and protected,” says great opera singer Raina Kabaivanska. Anna Tomova-Sintova, Blagovesta Karnobatlova, and Mincho Minchev share similar thoughts in the film. Footage from his joint work with Mirella Freni, Jose Carreras, Piero Cappuccilli, Nikolay Gyaurov, Gena Dimitrova and many other famous singers and instrumentalists, is also included in the documentary.

“The opinion of all who knew him is that he was a great conductor,” his son Peter Raichev says. “He was very emotional and he became one with music and with the performers. With him singers had wings to fly.”

His father Peter Raichev was a remarkable tenor and his mother was of aristocratic Ukrainian descent. Born in Milan, Ruslan Raichev’s first 13 years of life passed in Italy.

“My grandfather was friends with Pietro Mascagni, Umberto Giordano, Titta Ruffo, Chaliapin and frequent guests to his home were Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Prokofiev... and other famous names. At the age of 6 Ruslan began to study the piano and at the age of 10 he was already in the middle department of the Milan Conservatory. In Bulgaria he graduated from the German high school (1936) and applied to study conducting at the Academy of Music, as well as Law at the Sofia University. He was not accepted at the Academy because of a lack of qualities. He studied law for two years, but in 1838 he was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory. When he was a third-year student, great conductor Karl Böhm had him for assistant at the Staatsoper. He said that everything he knew about conducting was thanks to Boehm.

After the Second World War, Ruslan Raichev was part of strengthening Bulgarian music culture for decades. He soon became conductor of the Sofia Opera. Later he was the principal conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra and of the Varna Opera, which he founded together with his father. In 1951 he became the chief conductor of the Symphony Orchestra in Plovdiv and in 1953, together with his father, founded the Plovdiv Opera. His work with the Rousse Philharmonic and the opera house in the Danubean city followed. In the Sofia Opera he was a full-time conductor from 1959 to 1974, when he became chief conductor of the newly established Opera House in Flensburg, Germany. Despite better working conditions, four years later Raichev left and took the position of chief artistic director at the Sofia Opera. With the artists of the national opera house he had extremely successful tours in Vienna, Switzerland, former Yugoslavia, Romania. He was the first Bulgarian to receive personal invitations as a guest conductor at La Scala, Grand Opera (Paris), the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow), the Mariinsky Theater (St. Petersburg), the opera houses in Rome, Naples, Munich, Stockholm and many others. He is the first Bulgarian to be honored with the high French academic distinction "Knight of the Order of Art and Letters". In 1992 he became the chief artistic director of the Sofia Opera for the second time and at the same time he was the chief conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio (1993-1994).

This truly unique, cosmopolitan musician held the conductor’s baton until he was 85 years old. His biography book, carefully composed by his son, collects information about more than 2,000 symphony concerts and 1,800 music-stage performances, as well as hundreds of recordings.

We can hardly imagine the huge energy and love towards art behind these dry facts and figures. At the concert in Bulgaria Hall on the occasion of his 80th anniversary, when he conducted the BNR Symphony Orchestra, the unique musician said: “My whole life has passed at the service of music and at the service of Bulgaria! Everywhere in the world the press always pointed out there was a Bulgarian holding the baton. And most importantly, dear audience, dear friends, I have served you with all my heart! "

English: Alexander Markov