page_title: Bollhuset
section_title: The second national theater and Opera
hierarchical_section_title: Bollhuset / History / The second national theater and Opera
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: ridå för Stora Bollhuset i Stockholm sketch
context_page_description: Bollhuset, also called Stora Bollhuset, Bollhusteatern, and Gamla Bollhuset 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 "Bollhuset" means "The Ball House", and it was built in 1627 for ball sports and used in this way for forty years. The name Lejonkulan, however, was in fact the name of a different building, which was also used by the same theater in the 17th century.
  Bollhuset was the scene of a long series of most important events in the history of the theater in the city and in the history of Swedish theater. Between 1667 and 1792 it was used as a theater until it was demolished in 1793; between 1737 and 1754, the first national theater was located here; in 1773–1782 the Royal Swedish Opera was located here; in 1783–1792 the French theater of Stockholm was housed here; in 1787 the second national theater was re-founded in the building; and from 1788 to 1792 it was the home of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.
context_section_description: In 1771, king Gustav III of Sweden fired the French theater company, and the Swedish actors, led by Petter Stenborg, then saw their chance and asked to perform a play at the opening of the parliament of 1772. At the opening of parliament in 1772, the troupe of Petter Stenborg appeared before King Gustav III and all the public in Bollhuset after the French troupe had left it, and after this, the monarch decided to found a native speaking opera and theatre.
  The 18 January 1773, the opera Thetis and Phelée, performed by Carl Stenborg and the concert-singer Elisabeth Olin in the leading roles, inaugurated the Royal Swedish Opera, which was a great success.  This was an opera, not a theater, and the attempts to perform speaking drama was not very successful.  At the inauguration, the building had been redecorated; the walls where painted in greyish-yellow, the boxes in red, except for the Royal box, which was painted in blue and gold and the sealing a sky in white and gold.
  In 1781 the king, in his effort to establish a Swedish theater, hired a group of French actors, led by Jacques Marie Boutet de Monvel, to educate and perform with the first generation of new Swedish-speaking actors at Bollhuset. The opera was the year after, in 1782, moved to the new building of the Swedish Royal Opera and separated from the talking-part actors, and this is considered the beginning of the Swedish theater. The French troupe first performed at court, but begun to perform for the public in Bollhuset in 1783; in the absence of an organised theatre School, the future Swedish actors became students of the French troupe, which educated several of the later famous Swedich actors of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, such as Lars Hjortsberg, Maria Franck and Inga Åberg, and in 1787, an independent Swedish theatre troupe was founded under the leadership of Fredrik Ristell. The two troupes, the French and the Swedish, shared the same building but performed separately, was ruled independently and was considered two separate "Theatres", the French Theatre and the Swedish Theatre.
  In 1788, Fredrik Ristell fled the country to escape his creditors, and the actors formed a company and asked for the king's protection; he became the formal director, placed the theater under Royal protection, thus creating the Royal Dramatic Theatre. The Swedish theatre was to be ruled by the actors themselves by votes every fourteenth day under the supervision of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts; according to the reports made by the academy, this rule was quite chaotic, and the votings is described as capricious and temperamental; " The male actors arguing with each other, one of the ladies voting yes because another lady voted no, other of them counting their buttons and letting fate decide", and in 1803, the actors themselves asked the system to be replaced by a director.
  In 1792, Bollhuset was deemed to be too old and decayed, and it was torn down 1793; in the actors moved to the palace Makalös, (also called The Arsenal), where the Royal Dramatic Theater was to reside until 1825, after which it again was reunited with the Opera. In 1798–1842, the theaters and operas of Stockholm were united by a royal monopoly.
caption: Louis Jean Desprez : sketch of a screen curtain to the theatre at Bollhuset, 1780s, (Nationalmuseum)
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