It's perhaps not very widely known that Peter Darrell made a ballet about the Mayerling affair for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1963, 15 years before MacMillan's version. All I can discover about it is that the music was by Faure and it lasted about forty minutes. There's a list of the cast on the site devoted to Darrell, but no indication of which characters they were playing.

Does anyone by any chance remember the ballet, or even have a programme which would give some clues? I'm just curious to know how it was done!

Hello Jane; I'm going to talk to one of the original cast members a bit later, anything special you'd like to ask about it or should I just invite her recollections?

I'd love to hear anything, but I was particularly wondering if it was a straightforward narrative or done by flashbacks or something even less structured. Thank you anyway!

I'll ask her, and then just invite her to recall anything else. It will be either tonight or tomorrow. I'd never heard of it! So this is fun.

Hi, I've had an email from Donna-Day Washington, here is the text; she had some trouble registering? Anyway, she wrote thus:

".....they will not accept my email address! I have tried a few times.

So I will tell you about Mayerling, and you can pass it on.

It was told as a straight narrative but as I remember, it was not very straight forward.There were many scene changes and lots of props and I think the audience found it a bit hard to follow. I (Donna-Day Washington)played the part of Mary Vetsera, the prince's lover and I loved performing the ballet. The music (Faure) was so inspiring, and Peter Darrell, who was a dream to work with, choreographed the most beautiful pas de deuxs for Richard Rutherford and I. The ballet had only two performances, in Winnipeg,which was a pity, but the pas de deux was danced on tour by Richard and I."

She adds: If there is anything else anyone wants to know, I'd be happy to help.