RALEIGH—When he searched for music to make dances to, Balanchine rarely looked to Mozart.

That wasn't because the legendary choreographer didn't appreciate Mozart's compositions. Quite the opposite.

"Certain composers, like Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, he felt anything they wrote could be danced to, and that they were almost about dance," says Carolina Ballet artistic director Robert Weiss, who danced for Balanchine's New York City Ballet for 16 years. "With somebody like Mozart, he felt the music was sublime in a different way. And it was very, very hard to capture the essence of Mozart in dance."

This week, Carolina Ballet will toast Mozart's 250th birthday with the company's premiere of "Divertimento No. 15," created in 1956 and set to Mozart's Divertimento No. 15 in B Flat Major. Weiss sees the composer and choreographer as a perfect pair.

"I think Balanchine was a very spiritual choreographer, and I think Mozart was a very spiritual composer," he says. "It uplifts the soul to hear Mozart's music, and it does the same thing to see Balanchine's dance."

"Also, Balanchine was a choreographer of symmetry. And I think Mozart is a composer of symmetry and harmony, the beauty of the soul, and also of precision," he says. "Balanchine's legs and feet speak in a very precise way, and Mozart's filigree in his music also is very precise. Those mirror each other in 'Divertimento.' "

The program pays further tribute to Mozart and Balanchine. The company will revive two popular Balanchine dances from past seasons, the George Gershwin romp "Who Cares?" and the classic Christmas tale "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," set to a Georges Bizet score.

Weiss has also created a new pas de deux set to the adagio movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major. The duet, about an artist's battle with his headstrong muse, will probably alternate with the pas de deux from Balanchine's "Agon."