Jürgen Rose

The internationally acclaimed German stage designer Jürgen Rose has enjoyed an illustrious career in design for ballet, opera, and theater in his home country and around the world. Born in Bernburg/Sale, Germany, Rose studied in Berlin at both the Kunstakademie (Academy of Arts) and the Theatre School. At only age 22, he received his first engagement as a set designer and actor in the Stadtische Buhnen Ulm/Donau. Two years later, in 1961, Rose was engaged by the Müncher Kammerspiele, beginning a long association with this prestigious German theater. Among the numerous productions which he designed for them are Shakespeare’s As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Buchner’s Danton’s Tod and Leonce Und Lena, Tsechnechow’s Platonov, and Lessing’s Minna Von Barhnhelm and Emilia Galotti. Rose’s famous collaboration with John Cranko began in 1962 when he designed the sets and costumes for the Stuttgart Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet, which then entered the repertoire of The National Ballet of Canada, The Australian Ballet, the Munich Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet, and La Scala Ballet. Rose continued to design most of Cranko’s works for the Stuttgart Ballet, including Swan Lake (also for the Munich Ballet and the Frankfurt Ballet), Onegin (later presented by the Munich Ballet, The Australian Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the London Festival Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, and The National Ballet of Canada; Firebird (also for the Boston Ballet); Poeme de L’Extase (also for The Royal Ballet), and Traces, Cranko’s last work. Cranko, however, was not the only choreographer who called upon Rose’s brilliant design talents on a regular basis. Since 1972, Rose has worked with John Neumeier, artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet, on many ballets, including The Nutcracker (also for the Munich Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet); Romeo and Juliet (also for the Royal Danish Ballet); Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (also for the Royal Danish Ballet and The Paris Opera Ballet); La Dame aux Camelias (also for the Stuttgart Ballet); and Daphnis and Chloë and Firebird, two productions Neumeier choreographed for the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Most recently, he designed John Neumeier’s full-length Peer Gynt (1989) and Cinderella (1992), both for the Hamburg Ballet. Throughout the 1960’s, in addition to his numerous designs for ballet, Rose continued to design productions for theaters in Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich. In 1963, he designed the film
Das Schwartz-Weiss-Rote Himmelbett for which he won a West German film Gold Award. In 1970, he began what was has become a prolific roster of opera and design. He has designed productions of Salome for the Vienna State Opera and La Scala, Der Rosenkavalier for the Munich State Opera and La Scala, Cosi Fan Tutte for the Vienna State Opera and the Deutche Oper Berlin, and Don Giovanni for the Munich State Opera and the Deutche Oper Berlin. He has also designed Parsifal and The Abduction from the Seraglio for the Vienna State Opera, Arabella, Eugene Onegin, Das Rhinegold, Die Walkure for the Hamburg State Opera, Un Ballo in Mascera for the Royal Opera, London, Tannhauser for the Bayreuth Festival, and Wozzeck and Ariadne auf Naxos for the Salzburg Festival. Rose also designed Celia Franca’s production of The Nutcracker which the company performed from 1964-1995. Rose’s sets and costumes for John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias are the fourth to enter the repertoire of American Ballet Theatre since John Cranko’s Onegin (2001) and Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto (1967) and Le Baiser de la Fée (1974).