Frida Parmeggiani was born in Merano, Italy. Her theatrical career started in 1974 with set design at the Schaubühne Berlin. Later she focused more on costume design and worked with important directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Luc Bondy. In 1981 she was awarded the Foerderpreis des Berliner Akademie der Künste. In 1990 she was honoured as "costume designer of the year" by Theater Heute for her enormously successful production The Black Rider, a collaboration with director Robert Wilson and composer Tom Waits. Frida Parmeggiani has worked in all the major opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Bayreuth Festival. Her designs for Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle were recently seen in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and her designs for Madama Butterfly were seen at the Bolshoi and at the Opéra de Bastille in Paris.