Royal Dramatic Theater

Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm

The Royal Dramatic Theater ( Swedish Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern , more commonly known as Dramaten ) is the Swedish national theater in Stockholm . Every year around a thousand performances are given on the eight stages of the house.

The theater has been located at Nybroplan , Stockholm since 1908 . The Art Nouveau building was built by the Swedish architect Fredrik Lilljekvist and has been under state protection as Byggnadsminne since 1935 . Renowned artists such as Carl Milles and Carl Larsson contributed to the artistic design of the theater .

Many well-known actors emerged from the in-house drama school Dramatens elevskola .

history

Diazotype of the Dramaten from 1907

In 1788 Gustav III , King of Sweden , founded the Royal Dramatic Theater as a spin-off from the already existing Royal Theater ( Kungliga Teatern ); in the latter, operas were performed in addition to dramatic plays . Since this split off, the newly founded Royal Dramatic Theater has been the venue for spoken drama without exception. The Royal Theater, however, remained as a pure opera house and has been called the Royal Opera ( Kungliga Operan ) since 1997 ; it is Sweden's national opera .

Until 1907 the National Theater was located in a building from 1788 opposite the Opera House on Kungsträdgården , a well-known park in Stockholm. In the 19th century many well-known plays were performed in the Royal Dramatic Theater, including a. World premieres by Henrik Ibsen and Anton Pawlowitsch Chekhov , as well as some works by August Strindberg (e.g. Till Damascus ).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the problems of the Royal Dramatic Theater led to an intense discussion about a renovation. On the one hand, the theaters were considered old and out of date, the entire facility had an old-fashioned impression, and on the other hand, several competing theaters had established themselves in Stockholm, which brought the existing deficits of the national theater to the fore and ultimately had economic consequences. Various proposals were made, aimed at renovating the building or building a new one at Kungsträdgården , but none of them convinced the then King Oskar II . Instead, he had the building demolished in order to rebuild it in a more suitable location, on Nybroplan, a square in the newly created heart of Stockholm.

The architect Fredrik Lilljekvist was responsible for the new building, which was inaugurated on February 18, 1908 with August Strindberg's piece Mäster Olof and was given the abbreviation Dramaten . It was from here that the greatest influence of Swedish theater emanated in the 20th century. Important directors such as Olof and Gustaf Molander, Alf Sjöberg and Ingmar Bergman worked here.

The richly ornamentally decorated facade of the building is made of the light dolomitic Ekeberg marble (near Glanshammar ). The facade structure, influenced by the style of the Viennese Secession , with numerous ornaments reminiscent of Art Nouveau, is one of the few in northern Europe that was made from marble.