Maestro Ruslan Raychev was born on May 5, 1919 in Milan (Italy) into the family of the world-famous tenor Petar Raichev in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. His mother, Faina Kumanova, originally from Kiev, came from a noble Ukrainian family.
From an early age, Ruslan Raychev showed musical inclinations and at the age of 6 began taking piano lessons with the Italian pianist Carlo Viduso. At the age of 10, he enrolled in the children’s/middle school department of the Milan Conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi” with Professor Carlo Lonati. As a child in Milan, he grew up in an artistic family atmosphere. Frequent guests in the family home were personalities such as Arturo Toscanini, Umberto Giordano, Sergei Prokofiev, Totti Dal Monte, Aureliano Pertile, Fyodor Chaliapin, Tita Rufo and many other luminaries of that time.
In 1932, the family returned to Bulgaria. In Sofia, Ruslan Raychev became a piano student first of Prof. Panka Pelishek, and then of Prof. Andrey Stoyanov. In 1936, he graduated from secondary education at the then “Deutsche Schule” (German High School). He applied simultaneously to Sofia University and the Academy of Music – conducting, where, however, he was not accepted due to “lack of qualities”. Then he enrolled in the Faculty of Law of Sofia University, attended 4 semesters with passed exams, and in 1938 he went to Vienna, where he was accepted to the Conservatory as a regular student in the conducting class of Prof. Leopold Reichwein, and studied piano with Emil von Sauer (the last living student of Franz Liszt). In 1942, the great conductor Karl Böhm took Ruslan Raichev, still a student, as a personal accompanist and assistant at the Vienna State Opera. Raichev graduated from the Conservatory in 1943.
In February 1944, Ruslan Raychev left for the city of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad), where he was sent by his professor Karl Böhm to the local opera, which was left without conductors, which gave Raichev the opportunity to go through titles such as “La Bohème” (debut title, 22.03.1944), “Jenufa” and “The Marriage of Figaro” (as a director), as well as “Lohengrin”, “La Traviata”, “Tosca”, “The Merry Widow” and others in about 3 months.
In June 1944, Raychev returned to Sofia and was immediately mobilized; later he was sent to the front as a second lieutenant. He returned awarded two orders for bravery and promoted to the rank of captain. He served for several months as a translator in the Allied Control Commission.
In May 1945, Ruslan Raychev conducted a concert at the Military Club in Sofia with a full symphony orchestra.
From June 1, 1945 to March 31, 1946, he worked as an accompanist at the Sofia National Opera. His first job was in the production of the ballet “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” (Boris Asafiev), but he took the conductor’s chair in the third performance.
On April 1, 1946, he was appointed chief conductor of the newly founded State Symphony Orchestra in Varna, and in 1947 he became chief conductor of the newly founded Varna National Opera by his father, Petar Raichev. The premiere performance was on September 7, 1947, “The Bartered Bride” by Bedřich Smetana. The director was Petar Raichev. In Varna, it was actually the beginning of an enviable, successful and long conducting career for Ruslan Raichev.
In the spring of 1948, he was invited to Sofia by Stefan Makedonski, who invited him to be the chief conductor of the newly founded State Musical Theater, where he worked from 1948 to 1951. Here he prepared the premieres of “The Gypsy Baron”, “The Faithful Friend” and “The Bird Seller”.
On April 1, 1951, Ruslan Raychev was appointed chief conductor of the Plovdiv State Symphony Orchestra, with which he repeatedly brilliantly performed at the Reviews of Symphony Orchestras and the Decade of Bulgarian Music. In 1953, Ruslan Raichev founded the Plovdiv National Opera together with his father Petar Raichev, becoming its first chief conductor and artistic director. Here too, the premiere performance was of the opera “The Bartered Bride”, which took place on October 15, 1953, and was again directed by his father Petar Raichev. In 1953, Ruslan Raichev’s international activity began with a guest appearance with the Bucharest Philharmonic and the Romanian Radio Symphony Orchestra, at the opera houses in Timisoara and Ljubljana. In 1954, he visited Hungary. After the first performance at the Budapest Opera, he was invited to conduct three more, and after the concert with the State Symphony Orchestra, two more followed.
In 1956, Ruslan Raychev was transferred to Ruse, where on September 1, 1956, he became the chief conductor of the Ruse State Symphony Orchestra. He also collaborated with the Ruse Opera, with which he was invited to conduct the Second Review of Opera Houses in 1958. He had success with the opera “Manon” by Massenet, which was recognized as the event of the review, and the recording of the opera with the unforgettable Penka Marinova and Nikolay Zdravkov entered the Golden Fund of the Bulgarian National Radio. This success led to the transfer of Ruslan Raichev at the end of 1958 and his association with the Sofia National Opera for many years. At the same time, he was seconded – on a concurrent basis – as chief conductor at the Stara Zagora National Opera (from January to July 1959), and also led the Symphony Orchestra in the city of Pernik (until his death).