Welcome to Opera på Skäret in Sweden
– an internationally established arena for summer opera!About Opera på Skäret
A former sawmill on the shore of a vast lake houses one of the world’s most unique opera houses, renowned globally for its acoustics. After two decades of high-class opera and great artistic experiences, the Swedish opera house Opera på Skäret is an internationally established arena for summer opera.
Norma
This year, 2024, music composed by Vincenzo Bellini will be heard at Skäret for the first time. Norma, rooted in the Italian bel canto tradition, is Vincenzo Bellini’s most performed opera. Like no other, Bellini, also known as the master of beautiful melodies, expresses emotions with such intensity and beauty. Norma is perhaps precisely for this reason an opera that offers several well-known arias, including “Casta Diva,” one of Maria Callas’s great showpieces.
Norma had its world premiere in 1831 at La Scala opera house in Milan and has since been part of the repertoire of many major opera houses. This summer, Opera på Skäret tackles this gripping portrayal of women with connections that feel relevant even in our time.
20 years of opera history
The story began on a late summer day in 1996 when the opera singer and violinist Sten Niclasson discovered the mighty timber warehouse at a closed sawmill and conceived the idea of creating an opera house there.
It took eight years before he was able to organize the two opera galas that marked the inception of Opera på Skäret in the summer of 2004.
Since then, almost 130,000 people have enjoyed opera performances with international star soloists, superior orchestras and choral song by Opera på Skäret’s own opera choir.
Above all, works by great Italian masters, such as Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Donizetti and Leoncavallo have been played here, as well as works by Wagner and Mozart.
In the summer of 2023, Opera på Skäret celebrated its 20-year anniversary with a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, the work that put the opera house on the international map in 2006.
How to get there
You can travel to Skäret in many ways. If you are coming from abroad, by plane, the nearest airports are in Stockholm and Örebro. More information on how to travel within Sweden to and from Opera på Skäret can be found here >>
