Folkoperan

Cinema owner and builder John A. Bergendahl put up this building on the site of the former Maria saluhall as one of Stockholm's largest cinemas, with 1,002 seats, designed by architects Höög & Morssing in an elegant 1920s Nordic Classicism. It operated as a cinema for decades before Claes Fellbom, Kerstin Nerbe and Krister Fagerström founded Folkoperan inside it in 1976, with an explicit mission to make opera less elitist. It has since become one of Sweden's most important stages for freelance opera singers and musicians, valued for smaller, more unconventional productions than the Royal Swedish Opera offers.