Melomania

A sunny Friday morning in January. In the Uwe-Scholz-Ballettsaal of the Leipzig Opera, rehearsals for the premiere of Mozart/Rachmaninow are in full swing: The four women are currently twirling through the room in the third movement of Jeunehomme, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9. They are fine-tuning an arabesque, one arm outstretched, the other bent, both perfectly parallel above the floor. "A touch lower—yes, like that!" corrects Rémy Fichet, director of the Leipzig Ballet who is leading the rehearsal together with ballet master Sascha Pieper. Jeunehomme was the first piece Fichet learned when he joined the Leipzig Ballet as a dancer in 2000, he explains in an interview. "That time was incredibly intense for me because it was when I first met Uwe. He radiated an incredible amount of ...