Book Description

The Thetre of Drottiningholm - Then and Now tells the story of the Drottningholm Court Theatre, from 1766 - the year it was built - to today's performances presented during annual summer festivals. The court theatre was rarely used after Gustav III's death in 1792 until it was rediscovered in 1921, luckily for us, because this has meant that not only the auditorium but also the stage machinery, painted flats and backdrops have been almost perfectly preserved. This book provides a vivid picture of the Drottningholm Court Theatre: the architecture, the many different activities which took place here during the Gustavian era, and the use made of the theatre since its rediscovery to explore the nature of Baroque performance....The Court Theatre at Drottninholm is a work of art in the sense John Keats envisioned in his Ode to A Grecian Urn: 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.' But it is more than an objet d'art, an antiquarian piece to be enjoyed by experts, Its aesthetic values should not make us forget that it is also a historical document, which adds to our knowledge about how theatre was performed and...experienced during the epoch when Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz created it. --Cover.