Drottningholms Slottsteater celebrates its 250th anniversary with a lavish season

The full programme for the Drottningholms Slottsteater jubilee season is now complete and all tickets go on sale tomorrow. Inspired by the experimental drive of the 18th century, the programme opens with a newly composed opera and closes with an evening of contemporary indie music. There will also be dance, drama, concerts, film, lectures, an outdoor cinema, conversation, new theme tours and yet another opera premiere – all in the spirit of the new enlightenment.

Drottningholms Slottsteater is 250 this year, and will be celebrating in style with two opera premieres featuring top international names and a season packed with events. Celebrations kick off in earnest on the jubilee inauguration on 6 June with a programme for the whole family, including an outdoor concert in the park with the Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra, a series of five-minute operas, a jubilee concert with Elin Rombo, and lots of surprises. Admission free.

Drottningholms Slottsteater is one of Sweden’s greatest cultural treasures, and is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site. Nowhere else in the world is there a baroque theatre with intact scene machinery still in use.

“High artistic quality and first-rate international collaborations will remain top of our agenda for this jubilee season,” says theatre director Sofi Lerström. “But we also want to mark the start of our next 250 years by opening our doors to the public.”

Newly written opera and classic Mozart
The season begins and ends with newly composed music. First up is The Rococo Machine, which premieres on 7 June – an anniversary present from the Friends of Drottningholms Slottsteater. Then on 10 September, Peter von Poehl will be closing the season with an exclusive performance with the Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra that fuses the multifaceted world of indie music with the gentle tones of the baroque.

The season’s second large opera production is Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which opens on 13 August, when star conductor Marc Minkowski and his French team follow up last year’s hit run of The Marriage of Figaro, a guest production of which was met with enthusiastic acclaim in Versailles last January.

Outdoor cinema and theatre in association with the Bergman Festival
Bergman fever will reign at Drottningholm on 28 August, as the theatre teams up with the Royal Dramatic Theatre and the Bergman Festival to offer a playful tribute to the master with drama, dance and discussion. When the sun sets, there will be a free screening of his Magic Flute with an open bar.

During the holiday period, the Drottningholms Slottsteater’s Jubilee Spectacle, a divertissement of scene changes, music and history, will fill the stage. From 12 to 23 July, the salon will be full of song and music as the theatre shows off its unique manually operated machinery with the help of a dozen or so stagehands.

Welcoming new audiences
As part of our endeavour to draw new audiences, we will be offering a day of music, song, conversation and exhibitions in tribute to the theatre’s inter-cultural history on 28 August. Theatre without Borders will be centring on the theme of integration and bidding an especially warm welcome to Sweden’s new arrivals.

For the entire season, the theatre itself will be buzzing with activity, as our daily multi-language tours mingle with theme tours on subjects from ghosts to passion for the whole family. There will also be two jubilee concerts, a birthday party, opera introductions and much more. The full programme can be viewed at www.dtm.se.

For further details and to book interviews or visits, contact: Elin West, press officer, Drottningholms Slottsteater, 0733 50 26 25, elin.west@dtm.se

Press photographs and information can be downloaded from www.mynewsdesk.com/se/drottningholms-slottsteater