She studied stage and costume design with Andreas Reinhardt at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden. She was graduated in 2002. Additional studies in video arts led her to Barcelona’s Escola Superior de Disseny.  

Rebecca Ringst’s collaboration with the Spanish director Calixto Bieito began in 2006, initially as video artist, later on as set designer. In a close artistic partnership they have shared responsibility for many productions all over Europe, both for opera and drama, including Freiburg Theatre (De Falla’s La vida breve), Theater Basle (Don Carlos, Aida, From the House of the Dead), Bavarian State Opera Munich (Fidelio, Boris Godunov, La Juive), English National Opera (La Forza del Destino, Fidelio), Nørske Opera (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Nationaltheatret Oslo (Hamsun’s Mysteries), Zurich Opera (Die Soldaten, The Fiery Angel, L’incoronazione di Poppea), Stuttgart State Opera (Der fliegende Holländer), Opéra de Paris (Lear), Vlaamse Opera Antwerp/Ghent (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, Tannhäuser, Parra’s Les Bienveillantes), Komische Oper Berlin (Bluebeard’s Castle, Die Gezeichneten), Nuremberg State Theatre (Turandot), Saxonian State Opera Dresden (Moses and Aron, Le Grand macabre) and Theater an der Wien (Mendelssohn’s Elias).

Several productions were later on transferred to other opera houses. Tannhäuser moved on to Stadttheater Berne, Teatro La Fenice Venice and Leipzig Opera House, Reimann’s Lear to Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten to Komische Oper Berlin and Teatro Real Madrid, From the House of the Dead to Nuremberg and the Janáček Festival Brno. Rebecca Ringst’s partnership with Calixto Bieito is currently continued with Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Opéra de Paris, to be completed in November 2020.

Rebecca Ringst was Opernwelt’s Designer of the Year for Der Rosenkavalier with Stefan Herheim in 2010. She was awarded with Norway’s Hedda Prize and Spain’s Premio Max.  2019 was marked by a second nomination as Designer of the Year, this time by the International OPERA AWARDS in London.

Collaborating with Barrie Kosky, she designed Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for the Bayreuth Festival 2017, The Fiery Angel and Agrippina for the Bavarian State Opera. Agrippina moved on to London’s ROH Covent Garden.