Compliments! Congratulations!

[ripley]

Hi,
I's like to know froma native speaker if it is possible to say

1) Compliments!

2) Congratulations!

when you want to praise someone for something; for example you want to praise a musical performance or something like that....
If both 1 and 2 are ok, what's the difference?
Thanks

[SoothingDave]

To compliment a performance, you can exclaim "bravo!" (which is derived from Italian).

We would not say "compliments" in this situation. You could say something like "good show" or "good job" or some similar expression.