The groundbreaking of the Teatro Real was on 23 April 1818, under the reign of King Ferdinand VII, and it was formally opened by his daughter Queen Isabella II on 19 November 1850.

[4] The current theatre was founded by King Ferdinand VII in 1818, and after thirty-two years of planning and construction, a Royal Order on 7 May 1850, decreed the immediate completion of the "Teatro de Oriente" and the building works were finished within five months.

The opera house, located just opposite the Palacio Real, the official residence of the royal family, was finally inaugurated by Queen Isabella II on 19 November 1850, attending the performance of Donizetti's La favorite.

In the early period, it saw famous opera singers such as Alboni, Frezzolini, Marietta Gazzaniga, Rosina Penco, Giulia Grisi, Giorgio Ronconi, Italo Gardoni, Mario de Candia and Antonio Selva among many others.

[5] At its peak, in the last quarter of the 19th century, the Teatro hosted world renowned artists such as Adelaide Borghi, Marie Sasse, Adelina Patti, Christina Nilsson, Luisa Tetrazzini, Mattia Battistini, Julián Gayarre, Angelo Masini, Francesco Tamagno and Enrico Tamberlick.

The government set out to restore it and ordered numerous projects to be drawn out for its renovation, such as that from architect Antonio Flórez Urdapilleta, who proposed a monumental remodeling of the building.

The reopening was celebrated with a concert of the Spanish National Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, in which it was performed Beethoven's Symphony No.

The building was completed in late 1995, then the process of technical, administrative, artistic and functional organization began which led to the opening of the theatre by King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía on 11 October 1997.

[14] In addition of the world premiere of Divinas Palabras by Antón García Abril, the Royal Opera has staged another sixteen world opera premieres since its reopening: Don Quijote by Cristóbal Halffter (2000), La señorita Cristina by Luis de Pablo (2001), Dulcinea by Mauricio Sotelo (2006), El viaje a Simorgh by José María Sánchez-Verdú (2007), Faust-Bal by Leonardo Balada (2009), La página en blanco by Pilar Jurado (2011), The Perfect American by Philip Glass (2013), Brokeback Mountain by Charles Wuorinen (2014), The Public by Mauricio Sotelo (2015), La ciudad de las mentiras by Elena Mendoza (2017), El Pintor by Juan J. Colomer (2018), Je suis narcissiste by Raquel García-Tomás (2019), Marie by Germán Alonso (2020), Tránsito by Jesús Torres (2021), El abrecartas by Luis de Pablo (2022) and Extinción by Señor Serrano Group (2022).

[4] The company also premiered the first complete staging, with sets and scenography, of Isaac Albéniz's Merlin in 2003 –101 years after its completion–,[15] the first modern revival of Vicente Martín y Soler's Il burbero di buon cuore in 2007 and Poppea e Nerone, a new orchestration for a modern chamber orchestra of Claudio Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, by Philippe Boesmans in 2012.

On 29 March 1969, Televisión Española held the 14th Eurovision Song Contest at the theatre, featuring an onstage metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist Amadeo Gabino [es].

The Royal Opera claimed technical problems, but the then Chinese ambassador to Madrid Lü Fan said in a recording that it had been he who had pressured and given directions to the theatre to cancel the performance.

[25][26][27] In 2020 the theatre cancelled a performance of the opera Un ballo in maschera amidst booing from the audience due to lack of safety distance in the roost.