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Above: Jerome Robbins, John Kriza, Harold Lang, Janet Reed, and Muriel Bentley in the original production of Robbins's Fancy Free. Photo: Maurice Seymour via Newsweek

On April 18, 1944, Jerome Robbins's first ballet, Fancy Free, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House.

From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly young wartime America, 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamp post, a side street bar, and New York skyscrapers pricked out with the crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode onto the stage. They are on 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they meet first one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.

That synopsis was written by Leonard Bernstein, the composer of the ballet's score. He was 25 at the time (the same age as Robbins) and an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Just a few months earlier, he had made a splash as a last-minute substitution for Bruno Walter at a Philharmonic concert, jump-starting his career.

Above: photo from Haglund's Heel

The ballet featured John Kriza, Harold Lang and Jerome Robbins himself as the three sailors, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, and Shirley Ecki as the girls, and Rex Cooper as the seen-it-all bartender. The great critic Edwin Denby observed that the ballet:

was so big a hit that the young participants all looked a little dazed as they took their bows. But besides being a smash hit, Fancy Free is a very remarkable comedy piece. ... Its pantomime and its dances are witty, exuberant, and at every moment they feel natural.

Above: Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd, John Kriza, and Shirley Eckl performing the ballet in London Photo: Baron via MPR News

Pony mail!!

fancy free! finally she can be reunited with her sister midnight dream :D

they are girls together <3

Four up-and-coming talents, in a candid moment in 1943. Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green look over some material from their new musical On the Town, inspired by the ballet Fancy Free, with music by Bernstein and choreography by Robbins. On the Town would effectively be a launching pad for the four of them, and they would never be this free from pressure again.

[Don Stitt]

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In the series "Let's see it again but bigger" Laurie, watching his beloved crocks in the stable at Cape Evans, and anxieting the crap out of himself. How many of them will survive till Spring? Will they be able to do their job? Should I go to the pole? Is Meares fancy free? All these questions without answers...

And yes, he once asked Meares that question, namely after the celebrations of the Midwinter ceased for good and all the expedition members rolled their butts to their respective beds. Titus, who had earlier pretended to be three sheets to the wind drunk in a vain attempt to get Bill frostbitten, now probably got tipsy for real, as he decided to wake good Mother Meares up to ask him this very important question: