Greece keeps slipping away; on the eve of the 25th anniversary (November 1981 – February 1982)

The choir had a break until 2 November 1981, but the board met three days after the return to review the Rostock festival. Chonev reported that the chairman of the District Council for Culture refused to sign the memo authorising the choir’s trip to Greece; Dora Yaneva went to Sofia to prepare the visas all the same. On 3 November a team from Varna television recorded songs for a documentary on the choir’s 25th anniversary; on 5 November it filmed a rehearsal and interviews with Marin Chonev and Petar Vitanov, and on 8 November scenes at the Druzhba resort; the memories of Lyuba Lipova, Kosta Levkov and G. Pelov, a former singer in the Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir, were also recorded.

On 17 November the choir gave a concert-rehearsal for the participants of the conductors’ collegium seminar in Varna, some of whom asked to hear something Greek – the two Greek songs were nearly ready. Only that day were the papers filed with the Interior Ministry. Chonev wanted to travel in Balkantourist coaches, but the company had no foreign currency to spare; suggestions to postpone the tour to the spring or drop it altogether were rejected on moral and financial grounds. A chorister, Asen Kolev, deputy director of the Mehanizatsia building company in Varna, arranged coaches from the state transport company. The anniversary celebration, already postponed from the spring, was set first for 18–19 December and then for 26 December in the House of Amateur Arts.

Meanwhile, on 24 November, the choir sang in Valchi Dol – the district council had insisted that it perform in the district and not only abroad – to an almost empty hall of pupils who chatted and wandered in and out; the next day’s concert for a community centre was cancelled, and on 26 November the choir sang in its own hall for singing and music teachers from ten districts. In early December confirmation came from the mayor of Piraeus, but the visas were not ready in time, the departure planned for 10 December fell through, and an attempt to arrange a night in Thessaloniki failed because the year’s foreign currency had run out. On 6 December 1981 the choir took part in a concert of works by Todor Popov, People’s Artist, for his 60th birthday, in the packed House of Culture in Tolbukhin (today Dobrich); the composer thanked the singers for a brilliant performance, and one musician admitted that only now was he convinced a march could be a work of art. That closed the choir’s concert year 1981.

On 8 January 1982 pupils from the D. Debelyanov school, led by the Morski Zvutsi singer Svetla Stoynova, presented a programme in the choir’s hall dedicated to its anniversary. Through Georgi Robev, People’s Artist, a letter arrived from the Sorbonne choir in Paris proposing exchange visits – the French choir could be invited to the May Choral Festival in 1983. Sofia confirmed the concert on 20 February, but the choir had to produce its own posters, programmes and invitations. On 16 January 1982 Bulgarian Television’s second channel broadcast the Varna TV centre’s film about the choir’s anniversary, which greatly lifted the singers’ spirits. An invitation also came to open Varna Summer ’82 on 19 June with Al. Raychev’s symphony-cantata “He Does Not Die” with the Varna Symphony Orchestra – Chonev tried to decline but could not.

At the end of January the Greek visas were ready, but the Bulgarian exit visa was about to expire and had to be renewed, and the ambassador in Athens advised the choir to come after 10 February, once the Pirin ensemble’s visit was over. The board decided that the choir would leave on the morning of 9 February and arrive in Piraeus on the afternoon of 11 February.