Ursula Kudrna

Biography

Ursula Kudrna was born in Vienna and studied at the local Academy of Fine Arts.

The “Opernwelt” critics poll 2019 awarded Ursula Kudrna the title of “Costume Designer of the Year”, not only with fairytale and circus dresses for Mozart’s Magic Flute at the opening of the Salzburg Festival, but also with figures inspired by Pieter Bruegel in Beat Furrer’s Violet Snow, directed by Claus Guth, at the Berlin State Opera. Since 2003 she realized costume pictures amongst others for the Berlin State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Michailowski Theater in St. Petersburg, the Berliner Ensemble, Theater Bremen, State Theater Darmstadt, Oldenburg State Theater, Theater Basel, Concert Theater Bern, Cologne Opera, Wiener Festwochen, Salzburg Easter Festival, State Theater Mainz, National Theater Weimar, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin and the Maxim Gorki Theater.

Under the direction of Philipp Stölzl, Ursula Kudrna designed the costumes for Orpheus in the Underworld, The Flying Dutchman and Il trovatore at the Berlin State Opera, Faust and Rienzi at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Die Fledermaus at the Stuttgart State Opera as well as Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci at the Salzburg Easter Festival and at the Semperoper Dresden.

For the director Lydia Steier she designed the costumes for Giulio Cesare at the Komische Oper Berlin, Handel’s Jephtha for the Potsdam Winter Opera, Káťa Kabanová and Saul at the Oldenburg State Theater, Turandot at the Cologne Opera and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Thursday from Light at the Theater Basel – a production that was voted the performance of the year in the “Opernwelt” 2016 review of critics.

Ursula created costumes for director Jürgen Flimm for Manon Lescaut at the Michailowski Theater in St. Petersburg, Le nozze di Figaro at the Berlin State Opera, as well as Rossini’s Otello and Salvatore Sciarrino’s Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo at Teatro alla Scala Milan. After the premiere in Milan, Sciarrino’s work was also shown at the Berlin State Opera in July 2018. In addition, Ursula was responsible for the costume design in Flimm’s staging of Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust for the reopening of the Berlin State Opera in October 2017.