A Comedic Ballet With Legs
Wall Street Journal – USA

WSJ critic marvels at the staying power of Jerome Robbins’ Chopinistic comedic creation….

“Death,” one showbiz quip has it, “is easy; comedy is hard.” However savvy Jerome Robbins might have been in the mid-1950s as a still-budding master of both musical-theater dances and of classical ballet, he could hardly have predicted the staying power of “The Concert,” the comedic ballet he created to Chopin in 1956 and called “A Charade in One Act” and subtitled “The Perils of Everybody.”

Once his hilarious take on would-be concertgoers hit its stride with a 1971 restaging for his home-base company, the New York City Ballet, “The Concert” showed itself to be a deathless ballet comedy. In recent years, over a dozen ballet companies nationally and internationally, including one in Perm, Russia, have eagerly performed the work….

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Google Blogs Alert for: chopin

Robbins & Chopin at NYC Ballet
By oberon481

Dance-focused blogger’s taken on the Chopin/Robbins night at the NYC Ballet:

I’m not sure an all-Chopin evening is a great idea; surely the most effective programmes are those that offer musical contrasts. But THE CONCERT was fun tonight with Sterling Hyltin showing a nice flair for comedy (and dancing very well) and several amusing character players including Andrew Veyette’s henpecked, vengeful husband and Gwyneth Muller’s priceless wife with her droll efforts to maintain a sense of decorum.

Oberon’s Grove – http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/

Chopin in the Newsgroups:

Kobrins 2005 Chopin Preludes

From the rec.music.classical newsgroup, a discussion on the merits of Alexander Kobrin’s Chopin interpretations…

Sure emphasizes the dark side, but very effective,original conceptions
seemingly not just for effect. He seems to empathize better with this more complex,subtle music than with the more
extroverted, emotional Rachmaninoff Etudes,IMHO. But this is
2005……

newsgroups.derkeiler.com: rec.music.c… – http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.music.classical.recordings