Sophie de Lint

Sophie de Lint has been Director of Dutch National Opera (DNO) since September 2018. Recently, the company was honoured with several prestigious awards: ‘Best Opera Company 2023’ and ‘Best World Premiere’ for Manfred Trojahn’s Eurydice – Die Liebenden, blind (2022) by the jury of the OPER! AWARDS. DNO has also received three prizes from the British International Opera Awards: ‘Best World Premiere’ for Alexander Raskatov’s Animal Farm (2023), ‘Best Digital Opera’ for Michel van der Aa’s Upload (2022) and a prize for the company’s efforts in sustainability.

Sophie de Lint was born in Rotterdam and grew up in Geneva. She pursued violin studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, completed a degree in Business Administration at Webster University in Geneva and an Executive Master in Arts Administration at the University of Zürich.

Her wide-ranging career includes numerous artistic and administrative responsibilities for various opera houses and artistic agencies. From 1994 to 2001, Sophie de Lint worked at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as personal assistant to the General Manager, Renée Auphan, and later as artistic coordinator. In the years that followed, she gained extensive experience as an assistant stage director in various companies including the New National Theatre Tokyo, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Bayreuther Festspiele. From 2002 to 2006 Sophie worked as artist manager for Laurent Delage Artists Management in Vienna, where she specialised in the discovery and development of young opera singers, conductors, and directors. From 2006 to 2009 she continued these activities for Artists Management Zürich before taking on her role as artistic director at the Zurich Opera. She was then appointed Artistic Director of the Zurich Opera, under the general management of Andreas Homoki. During her tenure in Zurich, the house was awarded the prize for ‘Opera Company of the Year’ at the 2014 International Opera Awards. 

Sophie de Lint is a frequent jury member for international singing competitions including the International Singing Competition Neue Stimmen, the World Opera Competition Operalia, the Queen Sonja International Music Competition and the International Queen Elisabeth Competition for Voice. She is also a jury member for the Fedora-Generali Prize for Opera and the International Conducting Competition in Rotterdam. Additionally, she lectures at Zurich University in the programme Executive Master in Arts Administration. She was a member of the Board of Opera Europa, the organisation for professional opera companies and opera festivals throughout Europe, from 2017 until July 2022.