| Summary: | Birger Jarl, an opéra-ballet or play with songs and dance, represents an important milestone in Swedish theatre history. Premiered in Stockholm in 1774, this piece was based on a French model – Voltaire’s opéra-ballet Princesse de Navarre –, but set in 13th-century Sweden. The plot recounted the story of the founder of Stockholm, Birger Jarl, and thus it became the first music theatre piece on a topic from Swedish history. A particular strategy of foreign inspiration for national purposes is perceptible in the dramaturgy, music and also in costume and set design, which will be the main topic of this paper. Through extant costumes, drawings, inventories and stage notes (some of them inedited), I explore the French influences in the Swedish costume design of the time, and how these were combined with the requirements of the nascent Swedish national theatre. King Gustav III, true father of this idea, was known for his interest in costume, and the case of Birger Jarl shows how he directly intervened in the staging process. The issue of transnational travel of ideas will be developed by the complex question of centre vs. periphery in this case, where relatively marginal piece from one of the European cultural centres inspires an important piece of the European cultural periphery.
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