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.

Turandot

Turandot became Giacomo Puccini’s final opera and is today immensely beloved worldwide. This is the operatic tale of an oppressed people under an imperial dynasty in China. The merciless Princess Turandot is set to marry according to tradition but refuses to face the same fate as an ancestor who was murdered after getting married. She does not want to be reduced to being subordinate to a man and has therefore, in order to delay marriage, imposed the condition that a suitor must correctly answer three riddles. If the suitor fails, he is executed.

Puccini wrote this opera while he was very ill and never managed to complete the work. Instead, his student Alfano finished it according to Puccini’s notes. Since its premiere in 1926 at La Scala in Milan, Turandot has held an unquestioned place in the repertoire of major opera houses. The magnificent music and the setting at the centre of power in China is very captivating, not least through the challenging vocal parts that demands dramatic voices.

By the summer of 2025, we will be able to offer our audience this beloved opera, with the famous aria Nessun dorma, in one of the world’s most unique opera houses, a former sawmill located by the shore of a vast lake, now famous for its acoustics. It is now possible to buy tickets for the first five performances.

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 >>