Performed more than 30 times, Stenborg Theatre. 

Extract from Charlotta Wolff, "Opéra-Comique, Cultural Politics and Identity in Scandinavia (1760-1800), Scandinavian Journal of History, vol 43, 2018, Issue 3:

"After Grétry and Sedaine’s Richard Cœur de Lion from 1784 had been performed during a banquet for Louis XVI’s lifeguards at Versailles on 1 October 1789, this rescue opera became a symbol of the counter-revolution, and its aria ‘Ô Richard ô mon roi’ (‘Oh Richard, my king’) a rallying cry for the émigrés during the Coalition Wars. The play entered the Scandinavian stage the same year that it left the repertoire in Paris. It was put on in Danish for the first time in January 1791. In Sweden it was performed for the first time in December 1791, in French and in Swedish, almost exactly six months after the French royal family’s aborted flight to Varennes. While in Denmark, it was played only four times, in Sweden it became the most performed of Grétry’s operas, with three successive translations and over 130 performances up to the late 1850s.

In Sweden, the opera indeed seems to have had a particular significance from the beginning. In the first version given at Stenborg’s theatre in 1791–1799, Carl Stenborg himself sang the role of Blondel, Richard’s faithful troubadour who has come to liberate his king from prison, and played the violin solo belonging to his part. The translation, written by the in-house translator Carl Envallsson, contained an explicitly royalist modification. Immediately before his famous aria ‘Oh Richard, my king’, Blondel declares: ‘Orpheus animated by love had the gates of hell opened. Perhaps the gates of these towers will open to the accents of friendship.’ Envallsson translates this as follows: ‘And what should I not endeavour [to do]? I am, after all, strengthened by love for my monarch.’ This affirmation of loyalty to the royal cause was probably no coincidence. Indeed, Carl Stenborg not only ran a theatre and adapted opéras-comiques, but as a singer at the opera he was a servant of the royal household. Together with Envallsson, he also put on patriotic divertissements celebrating the Swedish victories during the war of 1788–1790 against Russia."

Performed between 1794 and 1833. 

Performed 46 times between 1793 and 1799. 

Performed 45 times between 1793 and 1830. 

Performed 12 times in 1793 and between 1796 and 1809. 

Performed 10 times between 1795 and 1796. 

Performed 10 times between 1796 and 1809. 

Performed 17 times between 1797 and 1799. 

Lodovico Piccinni (1766-1827) wrote the music for this version. 

This is described as an imitation and not a translation. 

The music was composed, for the Swedish version, by Johan-David Zander. 

Extract from the article written by Charlotta Wolff, "La musique des spectacles en Suède 1770-1810: opéra-comique français et politique de l'appropriation", Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 379, 2015, p. 27. 

"On peut cependant supposer que la lecture d’une œuvre comme Les trois fermiers de Monvel et Dezède, traduit sous le titre De ädelmodige bönderne, eller Dygden tillhör alla stånd (« Les nobles fermiers, ou la Vertu appartient à tous les états »), pour citer un autre exemple, n’est pas la même en 1794 qu’en 1777. Le public contemporain, au courant de ce qui se passe en France, ne se prive pas de commenter ce qu’il voit sur la scène. D’après le journal de la duchesse de Sudermanie pour 1793, de jeunes marchands et commis de boutique applaudissent alors à toute allusion à la liberté aux spectacles ; dans ce cas, il s’agit probablement du théâtre de Stenborg, à la fois accessible à la petite bourgeoisie et apprécié par l’aristocratie qui au début des années 1790 boudait le théâtre du roi."