Jürgen Rose was born in Bernburg an der Saale and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin and at Marlise Ludwig’s drama school there. In 1959/60, he received his first engagement as a stage and costume designer as well as an actor at the Städtische Bühnen Ulm. From 1961 to 2001, he worked as a costume and stage designer at the Münchner Kammerspiele. This was followed by designs for over 350 productions in the fields of ballet, theatre, opera and operetta in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, London, Paris, Milan and New York as well as at the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals.
He has worked closely with the choreographer John Cranko on productions such as Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, The Firebird, Onegin, Poème de l’extase and Spuren. Another important partner is John Neumeier, for whom Jürgen Rose created the stage and costume designs for Daphnis and Chloë, The Nutcracker, Illusionen – wie Schwanensee, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sleeping Beauty, Lady of the Camellias, Peer Gynt and A Cinderella Story, among others. His most recent works for the Stuttgart Ballet include a new stage design for Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling and the stage and costume design for Edward Clug’s The Nutcracker in 2022. Since 1996, Jürgen Rose has also directed his own opera productions, including Werther, Norma, Don Carlo and The Cunning Little Vixen at the Bavarian State Opera.
Jürgen Rose made his mark on the design of the Vienna State Opera with numerous stage and costume designs: in ballet with John Neumeier’s Daphnis and Chloë, The Firebird and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as well as John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, in opera with Otto Schenk’s productions of Don Carlo, L’elisir d’amore, Così fan tutte and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Boleslaw Barlogh’s Salome, Dieter Dorn’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and August Everding’s Parsifal.
In 2015, a selection of Jürgen Rose’s complete works was presented in a double exhibition at the German Theatre Museum and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. From 1973 to 2000, he taught as a professor of stage design at the Stuttgart State Academy of Fine Arts.