Born in Bernburg on the river Saale in 1937, Jürgen Rose has been involved in considerably more than 300 productions as a director and set and costume designer. Be it John Cranko’s classical ballets in Stuttgart, the »Kammerspiel« era of intimate theatre in Munich with Dieter Dorn or legendary opera performances in both Bayreuth and New York – Jürgen Rose’s imagination and unconditional devotion to detail left its mark on all of the above. For the title under consideration, the author, who has been following Rose’s great successes on the stage for decades now, has consulted important artistic associates of Rose’s, from John Neumeier to Otto Schenk; she describes Rose’s wonderful theatre archive in its Jugendstil hideaway in Munich, visits his magic garden in the mountains near Murnau and accompanies him to that most secret of all sites of romantic longing in Bavaria – King Ludwig II’s castle at Schachen. What emerges is a coloured portrait of an exceptional contemporary artist. Jürgen Rose’s life is not only a work of art in itself; it is also a piece of German cultural history.