There are only three older ballet companies in the world, those of Paris, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. Sweden got its first professional ballet company when King Gustaf III founded a Swedish Opera in Stockholm in 1773. Theatre was the king's great passion, and he loved acting and writing his own plays. He never appeared as a dancer, however, obviously because of the physical difficulties this gave him - he had a slight limp. But right from the start, ballet came to play an important part in the activities of the Opera. In only a few months after the Opera's opening the French ballet master Louis Gallodier had managed to summon an ensemble numbering thirty dancers. Already during the first season the king gave his great approval of the ballet company: "The dancers are not disagreeable and perform accurately; they promise to become quite good by time."
The dancers of the Opera not only promised to become quite good but also became quite numerous. Already in 1786 the company numbered an impressive 71 dancers (to be compared with the 75 of the Royal Ballet of today). In other words there was a heavy commitment to the ballet company. The king payed enormous fees in order to tempt distinguished dancers to come to Stockholm. Noverre's pupil Antoine Bournonville was one of the most famous. He came to Stockholm in 1782 and took the Swedish audiences by surprise with his technique, physical beauty and charisma. Foreign visitors of the time report of the splendid Gustavian theatre life, and the ballet company in particular. The rumour spread, and even that legendary reformer of the ballet, Jean Georges Noverre, turned directly to the king and sought engagement in Stockholm in 1791. He was not employed, however. The king was too busy with political problems, and the managers of the theatre probably were aware that Noverre's art at that time had reached a state of stagnation. But the dramatic style developed by Noverre was nevertheless presented by others and this suited the Swedish dancers obvious flair for dramatic dance. Thus The Royal Swedish Ballet was, already from the early stages of its existence, an ensemble with a rich dramatic capacity. That kind of dancers were also the ones whom Gustaf III attracted to his Opera, and dramatic ballet can to this day be said to be the strength of the Royal Swedish Ballet.
During the reign of Gustaf III Stockholm became a European metropolis of ballet, the company attained international fame and the ballet company was so vital that it by no means perished with the king's demise in 1792. During the first decades of the 19th century the Swedish ballet still stayed in frequent contact with France, and the Italian Filippo Taglioni was active as a dancer and choreographer in a couple of turns. Taglioni's daughter Marie - a future star of international ballet - was born in Stockholm in 1804. It so happened that she performed in the city of her birth only once, in 1841, with extracts from that romantic ballet repertoire which she had come to incarnate. When she travelled on to St. Petersburg, she was joined by a young Swedish dancer named Per Christian Johansson, who remained in Russia and, as a teacher, was to contribute greatly to the development of Russian ballet. Previously Johansson had been to Copenhagen where he was trained by Antoine Bournonville's son August. He also brought several works of the latter to Stockholm at the end of the eighteen thirties.
The romantic movement's great interest in folklore was reflected in the repertoire, based on Swedish folk dance, which was created by the young and talented dancer and choreographer Anders Selinder. The romantic strains of ballet also confronted the Stockholm public through ballets like La Sylphide and Giselle, the latter of which came to Stockholm a mere four years after the premiere in Paris.
August Bournonville spent several periods in Stockholm and between 1861 and 1864 he was employed at the Royal Opera as director and producer. When he left the theatre it experienced a downfall, just like the one at several other European companies at that time. Exceptions were Denmark and Russia, where the art of ballet continued to flourish. The renaissance of European ballet was to come some years into the 20th century and the impulses then came from the free dance and from Diaghilev's Russian Ballet in Paris. The American barefoot dancer Isadora Duncan was seen in Stockholm in 1906 and this inspired the young singer Anna Bahle to change her vocation and later to give the free dance its first foothold in Sweden. In 1908 a visit by a group of dancers from the imperial ballet of St. Petersburg with Anna Pavlova as its leading star was a great success in Stockholm. One year later they travelled to Paris under the directorship of Sergey Diaghilev and created that revolution which ballet in the west badly needed. Four years later the leading choreographer of the Russian Ballet, Michel Fokine, arrived in Stockholm and created a similar revolution. At last the talented Swedish dancers could appear in a meaningful repertoire, and just like in Paris ballet became an art to be reckoned with. There were even plans to establish a rival company to the Ballets Russe, with the Swedish dancers lead by Fokine. But the first world war came in between and only in 1920 the idea came to fruition, but then without Fokine. In his stead one of his Swedish pupils, Jean Börlin, became principal choreographer and the wealthy young art collector Rolf de Maré took on a role similar to Diaghilev's for the company. The Swedish Ballet in Paris existed for five hectic and intensive years, 1920 - 1925, and got a central position in the new art of its time. It became a sort of stage laboratory for the international avant-garde and attracted many of the foremost painters, composers, musicians and poets in Paris.
In Sweden modern dance grew strong during the nineteen thirties and -forties. Among the many young talents to appear then can be mentioned Birgit Åkesson, Birgit Cullberg and Ivo Cramér. These choreographers were also engaged by the Royal Swedish Opera to create a new national repertoire when the ballet was relighted in the nineteen fifties. The reform work was begun at the end of the forties by Antony Tudor, and with Birgit Cullberg's sensational ballet Miss Julie the art of ballet regained the attention of the public. This heralded a renaissance for the ballet which begun in earnest when the English ballet master Mary Skeaping came to Stockholm in 1953 with Swan Lake and got the Swedish company to escalate to a new level of professionalism. Skeaping remained as ballet director for almost ten years, and built a repertoire of classics as well as contemporary ballets expressively created for the company by Swedish choreographers. At the Drottningholm Court Theatre Mary Skeaping also gave the Swedes a unique repertoire of ballets in historical styles. This work has later been carried on by Ivo Cramér and Regina Beck-Friis.
In modern times the Swedish dancers' particular talent for dramatic ballet has been exploited not only by national chorographers, but also by many internationally renowned artists, ranging from Antony Tudor to Jiri Kylian and John Neumeier. The full length narrative ballets by Kenneth MacMillan and John Cranko have also suited the company to perfection, as have the modern styles of movement by for instance Glen Tetley or William Forsythe. The versatility, one night to master the 18th century style of ballet at Drottningholm and the other night to step into the present in a work by Ulysses Dove, Twyla Tharp, Mathilde Monnier,Per Jonsson, Birgitta Egerbladh or Mats Ek has become somewhat of a signature for the Royal Swedish Ballet.
