Abstract
<jats:p>In the middle of the 20th century, the opera genre in the Bulgarian musical culture found itself in a period of stagnation. After Tsar Kaloyan by P. Vladigerov, Yana’s Nine Brothers and Momchil by L. Pipkov and Salammbó by V. Stoyanov, works that drawing new and promising paths for the development of musical-stage genres, there followed an almost twenty years of creative “silence” on the part of our native composers. With his ten operas written between 1957 and 1976, Parashkev Hadjiev declared himself as a renovator and creator who dedicated all his energy to the revival of this genre in the Bulgarian musical culture. Inspired by some approaching significant anniversaries related to our national memory (1100 years of Slavic literacy and 1300 years since the founding of the Bulgarian state), he realized his creative impulse in two remarkable historical opera canvases, recreating real events from the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms. The research paper examines the compositional and dramaturgical approaches in the construction of the musical-stage action. It analyzes the use of musical expressive means in relation to the emotional development of stage characters and their presentation throughout the opera. Thanks to Parashkev Hadjiev’s immense artistic talent, these great periods of our national history find their rightful place in Bulgarian musical art through his operas Leto 893 and Maria Desislava.</jats:p>