Drottningholm Palace Theatre

Interesting facts

Around thirty original eighteenth-century stage sets survive, the only such collection still used with its original machinery.

The waves of a stormy sea are made by long painted rollers shaped like corkscrews, which turn to make the water seem to heave.

The first theatre on the site was built in 1754 by Georg Greggenhofer; it lasted only eight years before the fire.

From 1766 to 1771 the stage was used mainly by a troupe of French actors led by Du Londel, engaged by the court.

The candlelight on stage could be dimmed or brightened mechanically during a performance, an early form of lighting effects.

Despite the plain exterior, the narrow auditorium holds about 400 spectators.

The Italian machinist Donato Stopani is thought to have designed the stage machinery, though the attribution is not certain.

Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film of Mozart’s The Magic Flute recreates a performance on the Drottningholm stage, rebuilt in a studio for the shoot.

From the 1950s the dancer and choreographer Mary Skeaping revived period ballets here in the eighteenth-century style.

Why it is worth it

From outside, the theatre at Drottningholm could pass for a modest country manor: a long, plain building in the grounds of the royal palace on the island of Lovön, with nothing to suggest what lies within. Inside is one of the most complete eighteenth-century stages anywhere, still used for performances with its original machinery. The auditorium is a narrow, intimate room where the court once sat on wooden benches, with the royal seats placed at the front, directly facing a stage that is unusually deep for such a small house. That depth let the scene painters build long receding perspectives of painted wings, so that a palace hall or a forest seemed to stretch far into the distance.

The first theatre on the site burned down during a performance in August 1762. Queen Lovisa Ulrika commissioned a replacement from the architect Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz, and the new house opened in 1766. The Swedish treasury could not afford Versailles, so the interior, decorated by Adrien Masreliez, is a masterpiece of illusion on a budget: papier-mâché, stucco and trompe-l'oeil painting stand in for marble and gilding. Under the stage a system of capstans, rollers, ropes and counterweights moves the wings on wheeled carriages running in slots in the floor, so that a whole set can change in a few seconds with the curtain up. Machines for rolling waves and thunder, and a flying chair for gods descending from the clouds, survive with it.

The theatre's golden age came under Gustav III, who received it from his mother in 1777, wrote and staged plays himself, and encouraged opera in Swedish; he also added the Déjeuner Salon, used today as the foyer. After his assassination in 1792 the building was used as a store for palace furniture and forgotten. That neglect is why it survived. In 1921 the theatre historian Agne Beijer rediscovered it almost untouched, and it has hosted performances again since 1922, with electric lights made to flicker like candles. It is part of the Royal Domain of Drottningholm, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1991, and summer opera seasons with period instruments still use the old machinery on stage.

Getting there

Drottningholm lies in Lake Mälaren just west of Stockholm, about 3.7 km from the Bromma district. Stockholm Bromma Airport (BMA) is about 4.8 km away; most international flights use Stockholm Arlanda. Year-round, take the metro to Brommaplan and change to a bus to Drottningholm. In summer, boats run from the City Hall quay (Stadshuskajen) in central Stockholm across the lake to the palace.

Drottningholm Palace Theatre

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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