Dybbuk, a ballet by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins, is a fascinating exploration of Jewish mysticism, full of ghostly spirits and black magic. The score by Bernstein is among his most atonal and serialist compositions.
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"Few composers capture their time and become the iconic voice of their age. Leonard Bernstein found his "voice" in the early 1940s and projected the sound of urban and urbane America from the period of World War II to the anti-war movements of the 1970s and the restoration of freedom in Europe, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet communism."
-Conductor John Mauceri
(Photo by Al Ravenna, 1955; via Wikimedia Commons)
Facsimile, the second ballet by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins, was commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre, and the music was composed by Bernstein in the three weeks between the close of the 1946 season at Tanglewood and the opening of the New York City Symphony season. The ballet depi…
Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins first collaborated in the mid-1940s on the instantly popular ballet Fancy Free, commissioned by American Ballet Theatre. First performed on April 18, 1944, this work, a piece about three sailors on shore-leave in New York City, served as inspiration for their n…