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,
Sarasota Opera company. The first grand opera which Verdi wrote for Paris, "Jérusalem" (a revised version of the 1843 "I Lombardi"), was given in French in 2014, while his first comedy, "Un giorno di regno", appeared in 2013. Don Carlos, in the original, 5-act, Paris version in French was performed in 2015. The 2016 Winter Festival Season brought the completion of the 28-year Verdi Cycle on March 20, 2016 making Sarasota Opera the only company in the world to have performed every work, operatic and non-operatic, available for performance by Giuseppe Verdi and Maestro Victor DeRenzi the only conductor in the world