King Gustav III founded the Royal Opera in 1773 and in 1788 he founded the Swedish Dramatic Theatre. The Royal Theatres were the name used for both the musical and the dramatic stage. It was not until the 1880s that the Opera and the Dramatic Theatre went their separate, organizational, ways. Thus it is that there is material concerning both the Royal Opera and the Swedish Dramatic Theatre from the 18th and 19th centuries in the Royal Swedish Opera Archive and Collection as well as material concerning the Royal Opera up until the present time.
The purpose of the project is to make the Royal Swedish Opera Archive and Collections together with the new repertoire database accessible on line, i.e. to make available the contents of our collections to scholars of the history of opera, dance and theatre, the interested public as well as our audience. It is particularly true regarding digitalization of frequently requested documents in the archive.
The newly constructed repertoire database is soon ready to be launched online (the major part of this work has been undertaken with financial support from The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation as well as the earlier projects carried out with the support of BSTF, the Collection of Historical Costumes, the Collection of Set Design Models and the Art database.