Royal Swedish Opera architect Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz was commissioned by King Gustav III, a strong adherent of the ideal of an enlightened absolutism and as such was a great patron of the arts. The Swedish Opera company had first been located in Bollhuset, but there was a need to separate the Opera from the theatre and give them separate buildings. Construction began in 1775 and the theatre was inaugurated on 30 September 1782 with a performance of the German composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann's "Cora och Alonzo". It was also the place for public masquerade balls, events inspired from the famous opera-balls in Paris,
Royal Swedish Opera until 1809, and when the king was deposed, it took until May 1812, before it was organised enough to be fully opened again. The old opera was demolished in 1892 to give way to the construction of a new Opera drawn by Axel Johan Anderberg, which was finished seven years later and inaugurated by King Oscar II with a production of a Swedish opera (that tradition having been quite firmly established during the 19th century), Franz Berwald's "Estrella de Soria". The new house had the letters "Kungl. Teatern", literally "Royal Theatre" (which caused the later-founded Royal Dramatic Theatre to add