  We thoroughly compare the bound state and rigid rotator approaches to
three--flavored chiral solitons. We establish that these two approaches yield
identical results for the baryon spectrum and kaon--nucleon $S$--matrix in the
limit that the number of colors ($N_C$) tends to infinity. After proper
subtraction of the background phase shift the bound state approach indeed
exhibits a clear resonance behavior in the strangeness $S=+1$ channel. We
present a first dynamical calculation of the widths of the $\Theta^+$ and
$\Theta^*$ pentaquarks for finite $N_C$ in a chiral soliton model.
