Ballet in one act with choreography and libretto by MacMillan, music by Matyas Seiber, and design by Georgiadis. Premiered 10 Nov. 1960 by the Touring Royal Ballet, New Theatre, Oxford, with Seymour, Gable, Heaton, and Doyle. It is inspired by B. Guido's The House of the Angel and Colette's Le Blé en herbe and with sometimes shocking realism portrays a young couple's sexual initiation by an older married couple, ending with the older man's rape of the girl. Its graphic style and stark emotional material represented a seminal departure from the decorative fantasies that then prevailed among ballet librettos. It has been revived for Royal Ballet (1962) and Berlin Opera Ballet (1966).