Ellen Ruge, born in Oslo and based in Stockholm, trained as a photographer but has worked as a lighting designer since 1987 across opera, theatre and dance, as well as on permanent public art installations. She has collaborated with institutions such as the Opéra Garnier in Paris, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Hamburg Ballet, Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Semperoper in Dresden, Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet Rambert and Cullberg Ballet – often in collaboration with choreographer Mats Ek. She has also worked at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Joyce Theater in New York, the NCPA in Beijing and Teatro Martí in Havana. At the Göteborg Opera, her lighting designs have included Peter Grimes, Carmen, L’elisir d’amore and West Side Story.
Ruge has previously worked with the music of Benjamin Britten, designing lighting for The Turn of the Screw at Teatro alla Scala and Peter Grimes at Norrlandsoperan. For the Norwegian National Opera and Deutsches Oper she designed the lighting for Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the latter also staged at the Finnish National Opera, where she also created the lighting for Turandot (2022).
At the Royal Swedish Opera she has lit productions including Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, The Merry Widow, Un ballo in maschera, Stiffelio and Il trovatore, as well as the ballets Overboard, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, her lighting work includes Carmen, Wozzeck, the ballet La Sylphide, as well as Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea for the Norwegian National Opera.
She has also worked on Nixon in China for the Royal Danish Opera, Teatro Real and Scottish Opera, where she is designing the lighting for Tristan und Isolde and Le nozze di Figaro in 2024.
Ellen Ruge was awarded the Norwegian HEDDA Award for Best Lighting Design in 2009 and His Majesty The King’s Medal in the Order of the Seraphim for outstanding achievements in lighting design. She also received the SLF Award for Most Memorable Lighting Design (2017) from the Swedish Lighting Society, the Swedish Theatre Critics’ Award in 2020, and the 2021 award for Best Commissioned Light Art Installation in Stockholm.