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,
Villa Verdi parents, but, after the death of his mother, his father returned to Busseto. Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, the opera singer with whom he lived prior to their 1859 marriage, moved into the Villa in 1851. Verdi extended the original house on the property by adding two wings with terraces to the front, plus greenhouses, a chapel, and garages for coaches in the rear. Also, much of both Strepponi's and Verdi's time was taken up with considerable expansion of the parkland surrounding the house and the planting of many trees, some quite exotic in their origin. Apart from his visits to