Carmen C. Kruse
OPERA DIRECTOR & NEW WORKS COLLABORATOR
ABOUT
I believe in the power of music theater as an art form and institution to create and promote understanding and its ability to decisively contribute to society by being a place for encounters.
Carmen C. Kruse is an Austrian German freelance opera stage director. She focuses on creating places for encounters in large, small, new, and repertoire work while letting new spatial and narrative styles meet strong, three-dimensional characters in clear aesthetics. Together with living composers, Kruse explores the relationship between orchestra and scenic action and leaves conventional spaces to reflect new topics, spaces, and their people.
Kruse recently directed the world premieres of Victoria Bond's Clara at the Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden and Thierry Tidrow's micro-opera A Safe and Special Place at Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt. In 2020, she makes her Italian and French debut, directing the world premiere of Manuel Zwerger's Tutte le ricette (t.i.p.) at Lago Maggiore, as well as a world premiere in Aix-en-Provence.
Carmen won the CROSS Award in Italy (October 2019), as well as the directing competition of the Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Theater Baden-Baden, and the Deutsche Bank Stiftung (April 2018). She is an Alumna of the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung (Directing-Scholarship, 2017-19), the Lincoln Center Theaters Directors Lab (2018), and directs at the 2020 Académie du Festival d'Aix.
After studying Music and Media Management with a focus on opera and innovation in Munich and San Diego, Kruse worked a.o. at San Diego Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Osterfestpiele Salzburg. She gave her directing debut with Cavalli's L'Egisto at the Halifax Summer Opera Festival in 2017. Her work has since been seen at Staatstheater Mainz, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden and Ensemble Modern Frankfurt.
Date of publication: March 2020
SCHEDULE
20. & 21.11.2019
T. TIDROW
A SAFE AND SPECIAL PLACE
WORLD PREMIERE
Composer: Thierry Tidrow
Librettist: Mien Bogaert
Director: Carmen C. Kruse
Set Design: Sanghwa Park
Costume Design: Pia Preuss
Dramaturg: Lorina Strange
Conductor: Jonas Ehrler
FRANKFURT LAB, ENSEMBLE MODERN
15.05.2020
M. ZWERGER
TUTTE LE RICETTE
Winner of the CROSS Residency Award 2019
WORLD PREMIERE
Composer: Manuel Zwerger
Director & Text: Carmen C. Kruse
Set & Video Design: Judith Selenko
TEATRO IL MAGGIORE, VERBANIA
CASA CERETTI, VERBANIA
18.06.2020
M. ZWERGER
TUTTE LE RICETTE
Winner of the CROSS Residency Award 2019
Composer: Manuel Zwerger
Director & Text: Carmen C. Kruse
Set & Video Design: Judith Selenko
TEATRO IL MAGGIORE, VERBANIA
CASA CERETTI, VERBANIA
V. Bond: CLARA
Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden
— Christoph Wurzel, OMM, 15.04.2019
“Staging and set design fit the lyrical, poetic work in an ideal way. The scene is not naturalistic but leaves space for the symbolic unfolding of the protagonists' inner actions in a romantic space of nature. Nobody plays the piano here, this is mediated by music alone. Robert also does not fight with sheet music when he complains about writing inhibition - Kruse chooses to let time as sand trickle through his hands. (…) A world premiere that convinced in all its parts.”
© Jochen Klenk
GET IN ToUCH!
contact
CARMEN C. KRUSE
1090 Vienna
carmenckruse(at)gmail.com