Opera Stage Director - Carmen C. Kruse

Carmen C. Kruse

OPERA DIRECTOR & NEW WORKS COLLABORATOR

IN DEVELOPMENT

Kruse - Zwerger - Mattka

Great open eyes

Great Open Eyes is a new chamber opera by composer Manuel Zwerger and librettist/director Carmen C. Kruse that combines themes from Ibsen’s Little Eyolf with first-hand community accounts to explore the themes of grief and child loss. In an immersive, intimate world with a concentric stage designed for a black box or sight-specific space, three singers, one child, and 36 musicians offer its surrounding audience a unique scenic and acoustic experience that cuts right to the core of this human emotional journey.

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ABOUT

PORTFOLIO

Carmen C. Kruse is an Austrian German freelance opera stage director, working on repertoire and new opera. Her works are shaped by an in-depth, psychological exploration of broad societal themes and their effects on individuals. Fed by first-hand accounts and community input, she creating immersive experiences, changes the relationship between orchestra and dramatic action, and presents worlds that inspire, empower, and connect.

Together with Leonora Scheib, Carmen C. Kruse founded the opera start-up and creative producer, Civic Opera Creations, for which she serves as Co-Artistic Director. 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 2020/21, 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 C. Kruse won the CROSS Award in Italy (5t edition, 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), and was a finalist of the new music theater competition OPER.A 20.21 of the Fondazione Haydn Stiftung (2019). She is an Alumna of the Akademie Musiktheater heute (Directing-Scholarship, 2017-19), the Lincoln Center Theaters Directors Lab (2018), and the Women Opera Makers Workshop with Katie Mitchell at L`Académie du Festival d'Aix (2020).

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, Staatsoper Stuttgart, 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. Carmen C. Kruse speaks English, German, and Italian.

Date of publication: September 2020

V. Bond: CLARA

Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden

“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 does not fight with sheet music when he complains about his writing inhibition - Kruse chooses to let time as sand trickle through his hands. (…) A world premiere that convinced in all its parts.”

— Christoph Wurzel, OMM, 15.04.2019