The first bulgarian children’s operettas by Panaiot Pipkov – an attempt at a contemporary interpretation

Authors

Keywords:

Panaiot Pipkov, Dimo Boichev, children’s operetta, “The Cricket and the Ant”, “Children and Birds”

Abstract

Panaiot Pipkov’s children’s operettas were performed on multiple occasions in different cities in Bulgarian in the period from 1910 until end-1930s and were received very well by the audiences. Nevertheless, today they are almost entirely excluded from concert and school performance programmes. The article poses the following questions: are Pipkov’s works topical today and are they relevant to our national music scene; are they capable of tugging at the heartstrings of children’s and adolescents’ audiences that grew up amidst a digital and multimedia environment; can the characters from “Children and Birds” and “The Cricket and the Ant” and their musical features provide excitement and cultivate moral backbone? The present publication is an attempt at a new musical and dramaturgical analysis of the two operettas - an analysis which is focused upon the compositional concept of the composer viewed through the prism of the above-stated questions.

 

References:

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Author Biography

Boryana Mangova, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

Holder of a PhD and a Senior Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Educational Studies and the Arts of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She is a musicologist, a lecturer of History of Music and History of Bulgarian Music. Her scientific interests lie in the field of Bulgarian opera dramaturgy (the operas of P. Vladigerov, P. Hadzhiev, K. Iliev) as well as with the musical education in Bulgarian school from the Liberation until mid-1940s. She has also done research in the sphere of Mediaeval liturgical music. B. Mangova is the author of publications on the life and stage works by Dmitri Shostakovich.

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Published

2025-08-25

Issue

Vol. 1 (2020): Visual Arts and Music

Section

Articles