King of Sweden Gustavus III

Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 to 1792 and a decisive figure in the history of Swedish opera. Born in Stockholm in 1746, the son of Queen Louisa Ulrika, sister of Frederick the Great, and of King Adolf Frederick, he showed an early inclination towards writing librettos and dramas from the age of ten. His education in Paris brought him into contact with French opéra comique and tragédie lyrique, whose works by Favart, Racine, Marmontel and Quinault he paraphrased.

After his accession to the throne, in March 1772 he carried out a coup d'état that granted him absolute authority, which allowed him to pursue his project of a national Swedish opera. In January 1773 the Royal Opera opened with Thetis och Pelée by Uttini, whose libretto the monarch himself had sketched out. Over the following decade he personally supervised the development of the genre, gathered Swedish writers around him, founded a court theatre, supported private theatres and encouraged composers such as Naumann, Kraus and Vogler. The Royal Opera House, built in 1782, boasted stage machinery that was very advanced for its time.

His assassination at a masked ball in 1792, the outcome of a noble conspiracy, provided the basis for two nineteenth-century operas: Auber's Gustave III and Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.