by Nicholas Jones
The Palace Theatre at Drottningholm, a royal residence on a beautiful lake not far from Stockholm, is celebrating its 250th anniversary this summer. Replacing an earlier baroque theatre destroyed in a fire, the new theatre was used steadily during the second half of the 18th century by the opera-loving Swedish king, Gustav III.
In an operatic turn of fate, Gustav was assassinated in 1792 during a masquerade at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House — a story revisited in Verdi’s opera, Un ballo in maschera.
After Gustav’s death, operas ceased at Drottningholm. The theatre was abandoned and turned into a place to store old furniture. [Read more…]