Opera stage director and new works collaborator, Carmen C. Kruse, grew up in Carinthia and Hamburg. She now lives in Vienna. Fed by first-hand accounts, her directing work is shaped by an in-depth, psychological exploration of broad societal themes and their effects on individuals. For these she creates immersive, live experiences that change the relationship between orchestra and dramatic action, and present archaic worlds that inspire and empower.

She gave her directing debut with Cavalli's "L’Egisto" at the Halifax Summer Opera Festival in 2017. Further productions brought Kruse to a.o. the Bregenzer Festspiele, the Osterfestspielen Baden-Baden, Theater Münster, Staatstheater Mainz, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Nikkikai Opera Theatre in Tokio, the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt and Volksoper Wien. Kruse won the CROSS Award in Italy (2019), the Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden Directing Competition (2018), and was a finalist of the Fondazione Haydn Stiftung OPER.A 20.21 Competition (2019) as well as the NOperas! Competition (2021). Her Bregenzer Festspiele production of "Die Judith von Shimoda" is nominated for the 2024 Austrian Musictheatre Price as "Best World premiere".

She collected first opera experiences in Australia, the US, and Canada, before studying music and media management with a focus on opera and innovation in Munich and San Diego. She is an Alumna of the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung (Directing Scholarship, 2017-19), the Women Opera Makers Workshop with Katie Mitchell at L’Académie du Festival d’Aix (2020), the BMP: Producers Academy in New York (2020) and the Lincoln Center Theaters Directors Lab in New York (2018). In 2023, she concluded her Executive Master in Arts Administration studies in Zurich.