Aunt Elsa’s Secret Dreams (Tant Elsas Hemliga Drömmar) never made it to its premiere. Birgit Cullberg scrapped the work after the general rehearsal. However, she described the idea for the work as follows:
“After a few visits to churches with other single pensioners, I have made this ballet partly as a proposal for a more entertaining Mass and partly as an attempt at a critical examination of the church tradition itself. What do we mean by communion, sin, heaven? Are they not just theatrical templates that are often, like the Eucharist, based on ancient, cannibalistic and sacrificial rituals? Love of mankind is essential and not the often sadistic love of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was an intelligent and unconventional man who, if he had lived now, surely would have adapted their message to our current cultural and political developments.”