Yitzhak Fintsi at 91

On April 25, Itzhak Fintsi was born, part of the so-called "golden generation" Bulgarian actors, BNR reported. For his 91-year earthly journey, Itsko Fintsi left a lasting mark on Bulgarian theatrical, film and cultural life.

He was born in Sofia, but his family originates from Sarajevo. Being an actor seems to have been predestined, as his father, Samuel, was also an actor, reciter and director of self-made theater productions. Thus, Yitzhak ended up on stage in kindergarten, where he acted in a play based on the fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The path to the love of the audience goes through VITIZ (now the National Academy of Theater and Film Arts), where he became part of the class of the prominent Bulgarian theater pedagogue Prof. Stefan Sarchadzhiev and studied together with the galaxy of future stars of the Bulgarian stage:

"You asked me about my admission to VITIZ and about the people I met there. People who later became famous artists and I saw most of them in the Satirical Theater where I went in 1960. In VITIZ, I was in the same class with Tatyana Lolova, Hindo Kasimov, Tsako Dachev, Nikola Anastasov, Dosyo Dosev, Grigor Vachkov – the actor recalls to Radio Bulgaria and shares a series of curious moments with them: - The last five were a small group that moved together and very often went to treat each other. I didn't drink and I was further away from them, but we had campaigned, we went to sing and participate together in different places. With Tatiana Lolova, I remember well, we were in a troupe that toured Bulgaria, which lasted 30-40 days. We were in various cities with a collective variety program. Tatiana sang ditties, I played the accordion, and I also acted in a dramatization of a story by Chekhov. It was called "Night before Judgment"."

For his first role in the Satirical Theater – the play "Durvenitsa" of the director and then director of the troupe Boyan Danovski – Itsko Fintsi tells:

"This show, it seems to me, was already played for one season and was recognized as very interesting, and Georgi Kaloyanchev himself became famous for his role as Presipkin. We had beards, mustaches and long hair. It was our first participation in the Satirical Theater, and I ended up there because of my friendship with the director Metodi Andonov – Finci remembers. – We studied with him at VITIZ, where he cast me in an excerpt from the play "Servant of Two Masters", I received his approval and we became friends. Later he offered me to go with him to Burgas, where we played "Chichovtsi" in the theater. by Ivan Vazov, dramatized by Ivan Teofilov. There I played Barlaam the Silkmaker."

One of the emblematic incarnations of the actor is his role as a musician in the legendary April Fool's concert, which he organized together with his colleagues Rashko Mladenov, Nikolay Binev and Todor Kolev.

"On the poster it was written "Masterpieces from the world classics". We are amateurs, but we treat music as sacred. Our technical abilities are weak, but our feeling for music – hard, but that's all we can do. We must be funny, but we participated in it with great fervor – as it should be“ – Fintsi is categorical.

Today, already 91, Itsko Fintsi lives far from the hectic rhythm of our capital, but continues to be strongly connected with cultural life in Bulgaria. In the autumn of life, when many people stop making plans, fate presents Finns with wonderful surprises. In 2017, 51 years after the appearance of his son – the actor Samuel Finzi, who is building a stellar career in Germany – Yitzhak became a father again, this time to the baby girl Matilda, born to his wife - the director Lisa Boeva.