Drottningholm Palace Theatre
Encyclopedia
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
located at Drottningholm Palace
Drottningholm Palace
The Drottningholm Palace is the private residence of the Swedish royal family. It is located in Drottningholm. It is built on the island Lovön , and is one of Sweden's Royal Palaces. It was originally built in the late 16th century. It served as a residence of the Swedish royal court for most of...
in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, which has been described by Per-Erik Öhrn, the theatre’s former artistic director, as "the Swedish jewel in our European cultural heritage crown of centuries-old theatres".
Currently the reinvigorated theatre has acquired a growing international reputation as a summer opera festival theatre by focusing on works by Haydn, Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
, Gluck and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and emphasis on authentic performance. The theatre has also had guest performances by the Royal Swedish Opera
Royal Swedish Opera
Kungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...
.
Original theatre
Work began at the end of the seventeenth century under the architect Nicodemus Tessin the ElderNicodemus Tessin the Elder
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder was an important Swedish architect.-Biography:Nicodemus Tessin was born in Stralsund in Pomerania and came to Sweden as a young man. There he met and worked with the architect Simon de la Vallée...
and was completed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger
Nicodemus Tessin the Younger
Count Nicodemus Tessin the Younger was a Swedish Baroque architect, city planner, and administrator.The son of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and the father of Carl Gustaf Tessin, Tessin the Younger was the middle-most generation of the brief Tessin dynasty, which have had a lasting influence on...
. The interior was decorated between 1665 and 1703, at first in a heavy, sumptuous baroque style, but later increasingly refined to French patterns. During the 18th-century, it was used as a stage for French theatre, such as the Du Londel Troupe
Du Londel Troupe
The Du Londel Troupe was a French 18th-century theatre troupe. From 1753 to 1771, it was active as the French Theatre of Sweden, where it played a great part in that country's theatre history....
(1753-1771).
The predecessor to the present theatre was destroyed by a fire in 1762. The present 400-seat opera house was opened in 1766 by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz
Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz
Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz was a Swedish architect and civil servant. Adelcrantz's style developed from a rococo influenced by Carl Hårleman, the leading architect in Sweden in the early years of his career, to a classical idiom influenced by the stylistic developments in France in the mid-to-late...
for Queen Lovisa Ulrika
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia was Queen of Sweden between 1751 and 1771 as the spouse of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden, and queen mother during the reign of King Gustav III of Sweden.-Background:...
. Its interior decoration is made from a mixture of stucco, papier-mâché, and painting. The stage machinery, designed by the Italian, Donato Stopani, is still intact and it includes a wave machine, thunder machine, and a flying chair which is often used for deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
effects.
After the assassination of King Gustav III
Gustav III of Sweden
Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Queen Louise Ulrica of Sweden, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia....
in 1792 (which is the basis of the Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
opera, Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
), the theatre was forgotten.
Twentieth Century restoration and revival
In 1920, under the direction of Swedish theatre historian Agne Beijer, it was restored with the addition of electric light, which today is designed to flicker like candles. It re-opened on 19 August 1922 and is today run by a private foundation, the Drottningholm Theatre Museum, and is funded by government and private grants.Almost all of the equipment is original, and the stage is unusual for having a significantly greater depth than width. The operas are often performed by musicians wearing period costume, and the orchestra performs using period or copies of authentic instruments. Most productions demonstrate some of the possible stage effects using the original equipment.
In 1991, the theatre, along with the Drottningholm Palace (the residence of the Swedish royal family), the Chinese Pavilion
Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm
The Chinese Pavilion , located on the grounds of the Drottningholm Palace park, is a Chinese-inspired royal pavilion built in 1753. The pavilion is currently one of Sweden's Royal Palaces....
and the surrounding park, became the first Swedish patrimony to be inscribed in the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
list of World Heritage Sites. Parts of the Palace, the Pavilion and the Theatre are open to the public.
Recent Artistic Directors of the theatre are Arnold Östman (1980-92), Elisabeth Söderström
Elisabeth Söderström
Elisabeth Anna Söderström CBE was a Swedish soprano, who performed both opera and song. She was particularly well known for her recordings of the lead soprano roles in the three Janáček operas Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, and The Makropoulos Affair, all of which received Gramophone Awards...
(1993-96), Per-Erik Öhrn (1996-2007). British conductor Mark Tatlow took over as Artistic Director in 2007.
The theatre as featured in Bergman's The Magic Flute
The interior of the theatre was originally scheduled to feature in Ingmar BergmanIngmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
's 1975 film version of The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute (1975 film)
The Magic Flute is Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film version of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte. It was intended as a television production and was first shown on Swedish television but was followed by a cinema release later that year. The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but was not...
. However, according to film historian Peter Cowie
Peter Cowie
Peter Cowie is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual International Film Guide, a survey of worldwide film production. Educated at Charterhouse School, and an Exhibitioner in History at Magdalene...
's notes for the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release of the film, while Bergman wanted to recreate as closely as possible the original 1791 production in the Theater auf der Wieden
Theater auf der Wieden
The Theater auf der Wieden, also called the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden or the Wiednertheater, was a theater located in the then-suburban Wieden district of Vienna in the late 18th century...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, he had hoped that the film could be shot in the theatre. Introductory exterior shots of the theatre set the scene in the film. However, "the scenery was considered too fragile to accommodate a film crew. So the stage – complete with wings, curtains, and wind machines – was painstakingly copied and erected in the studios of the Swedish Film Institute".
See also
- List of opera festivals
- Royal Swedish OperaRoyal Swedish OperaKungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...
- Royal Swedish Academy of MusicRoyal Swedish Academy of MusicThe Royal Swedish Academy of Music or Kungl. Musikaliska Akademien, founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...
- Culture of SwedenCulture of SwedenSwedish culture has been described as Lutheranism, trade unionism, and self-reliance, aspects that have been associated with Swedish mentality....
- History of SwedenHistory of SwedenModern Sweden started out of the Kalmar Union formed in 1397 and by the unification of the country by King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. In the 17th century Sweden expanded its territories to form the Swedish empire. Most of these conquered territories had to be given up during the 18th century...
- BollhusetBollhusetBollhuset, also called ', ', and ' at various times, was the name of the first theater in Stockholm, Sweden; it was the first Swedish theater and the first real theater building in the whole of Scandinavia. The name "" means "The Ball House", and it was built in 1627 for ball sports and used in...
External links
- Online site for photo of performance
- History of Gustave III online at britannica.com
- Nicodemus-Tessin-the-Elder online at britannica.com
- Drottningholm Theatre online at britannica.com
- Drottningholm Palace and Theatre online at The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- Theatre website in English online at dtm.se/eng