Hein
Mulders

Hein Mulders has been the director of the Cologne Opera since the 2022/23 season. He focuses on a broad range of major operas with internationally renowned and established, as well as young, artistic teams, conductors and singers, alongside international collaborations and co-productions – initially in the interim venue, the Staatenhaus.

Hein Mulders was born and raised in the Netherlands. After completing his Abitur, he moved to Paris at the age of 17 to study Art History at the École du Louvre and French at the Institut Universitaire Catholique. He then moved to the University of Amsterdam, where he studied Art History, Archaeology, and Italian, specialising in Musicology and Opera History. He also studied piano at the Utrecht Conservatoire.

After successfully completing his studies, he began working in the vocal department of one of the leading national music agencies in The Hague as an assistant to the management. Subsequently, he took on the position of Orchestra Manager for the Netherlands National Youth Orchestra, accompanying the orchestra on international tours and music festivals in France (Aix-en-Provence), Spain (Valencia), Hungary (Budapest), Slovenia (Ljubljana), Austria (Wiener Festwochen), Germany (Schloss Weikersheim), Belgium, and Italy.

In 1995, Hein Mulders began working as a Casting Officer at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent. Just one year later, he became part of the leadership team as Head of Casting and Artistic Planning. He was responsible for all artistic matters concerning the composition of production teams, the selection of conductors, the casting of singers, and overall artistic planning. At the same time, he was a jury and board member of the Opera Studio in Flanders.

In the summer of 2006, Hein Mulders moved to the Nationale Opera in Amsterdam as Opera Director, where, as the right-hand man to General Manager and Director Pierre Audi, he was also responsible for leading the music and directing departments, in addition to casting and overall artistic planning. Right from the start, Hein Mulders brought conductor Marc Albrecht to the house, where he served as General Music Director for more than ten years. In Amsterdam, Mulders was responsible for casting, among other productions, the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s opera "A Dog's Heart" (based on a story by Mikhail Bulgakov), which gained global attention. The monumental Amsterdam production of Gioachino Rossini's opera "William Tell" was subsequently performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In Amsterdam, Hein Mulders worked with conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Sir Simon Rattle, and directors such as Stefan Herheim, Christof Loy, and Simon McBurney.

From 2013 to 2022, Hein Mulders led the Aalto-Musiktheater Essen, the Philharmonie Essen, and the Essener Philharmoniker, when these three divisions of the Theater und Philharmonie Essen (TUP) complex came under a single leadership for the first time. He introduced the Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil, previously Music Director at the Prague National Theatre, as the new General Music Director for the Essener Philharmoniker and the Aalto-Musiktheater. In 2016, Mulders’ contract in Essen was extended for another five years from 2018. In the 2018/19 season, the Aalto-Theater was nominated for "Opera House of the Year" in North Rhine-Westphalia in the "Welt am Sonntag" critics' poll, owing to the breadth and quality of its productions.

Hein Mulders is a jury member for numerous international singing competitions, including "Viñas"/Barcelona, "Julián Gayarre"/Pamplona, Opera de Tenerife/Santa Cruz, "Queen Sonja"/Oslo, "Ottavio Ziino"/Rome, "Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques"/Lyrichorégra, Montreal, "Grand Prix de L'Opéra"/Bucharest, "Cesti Baroque Opera"/Innsbruck, "Belvedere"/Villach, Amsterdam, Cape Town, Jūrmala, Dortmund, "Maria Callas"/São Paulo, "Marie Kraja"/Tirana, "IVC"/’s-Hertogenbosch, and the "Opera Awards"/London 2017/2019. Furthermore, in September 2020, he was also on the final jury for the International Conducting Competition "Guido Cantelli" in Turin/Novara.