Dejan Miladinović was born in Belgrade, into a family of prominent opera artists (his mother Milica, a mezzo soprano, now retired, was a leading singer in the Opera Company of the National Theatre in Belgrade and his late father, Dušan, was the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director in the same company).

Miladinović has served as Pricipal Director at Opera and Drama companies as well as the Artistic Director of the Opera Company, two terms in office, in the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. He has also served as an artistic consultant for grand stage projects in Convention Centre “Sava” in Belgrade. He moved from Novi Sad to Belgrade, where he assumed the position of Director in Opera Company of the National Theatre in Belgrade and, then at the proposal and invitation of the whole company of the Belgrade Opera, he became the Artistic Director in the same company. He remained in this position during the NATO aerial bombing, although he had numerous invitations from abroad. Several years later, he transfers, again at the invitation, to become the Artistic Director at Opera & Theatre Madlenianum in Zemun. At the offer of Minister of Culture of Serbia, he accepted position as Artistic Director of Belgrade Opera.

For five years, he has worked as an Associate Professor and Artistic Director of Opera Theatre at Meadows School of Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. For seven years, he served as an Associate Professor of acting and in Opera Theatre at the Faculty of Music Arts, Belgrade, and Associate Professor of acting and directing at Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. Afterwards, following the invitation of the National Theatre in Belgrade, he assumed the position of a Director and Professor of Acting at “Borislav Popović” Opera Studio.

Dejan Miladinović directed 163 productions, mostly operas (starting from Monteverdi to modern national and international composers) in professional opera companies in former Yugoslavia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Skopje, Zagreb, Split, Osijek, Sarajevo) and abroad.

His directing debut in the USA was the production of PRINCE IGOR by Borodin in Dallas Opera, Texas. He directed in the following opera companies throughout the USA and Canada: Dallas Opera, Baltimore Opera, Hawaii Opera, Atlanta Opera, Florentine Opera, Milwaukee; San Diego Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Columbus, Austin Lyric Opera, Summer Opera Festival, New Jersey, Opera Pacific, Los Angeles, Detroit Opera, Michigan, Winnipeg Opera, Canada, New Orleans Opera, Vancouver Opera, Canada, Edmonton Opera, Canada, New York City Opera.

Dejan Miladinović has cooperated with numerous renowned opera artists:

Soprano: Renee Fleming, Ghena Dimitrova, Sumi Jo, Erika Sunnegardh, Mary Dunleavy, Stefka Evstatieva, Alessandra Marc, Frances Ginzer, Zvetelina Vassileva, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Stella Zambalis, Michele Crider, Indra Thomas, Brenda Harris...

Mezzo-Soprano: Florence Quivar, Eva Podles, Irina Mishura, Marianne Cornetti, Joyce Castle, Nina Terentieva...

Tenor: Richard Margison, Anthony Dean Griffey, Jon Fredric West, Fabio Armiliato, Wieslaw Ochman, Vincent Cole, Vladimir Grishko, Michael Sylvester, Gary Lakes, Hugh Smith, Lando Bartolini, Eduardo Villa...

Baritone: Sergei Leiferkus, Justino Díaz, Timothy Noble, Dwayne Croft, Mark Delavan, Louis Otey, Mark Rucker, Donnie Ray Albert, Vladimir Alekseyev...

Bass: Hao Jiang Tian, Paul Plishka, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Eric Halfvarson, John Cheek, Victor von Halem, Aleksander Anisimov, Richard Bernstein...

Dejan Miladinović has cooperated with numerous renowned conductors:

Julius Rudel, Nicola Rescigno, Joseph Rescigno, Yuri Simonov, John Mauceri, Thomas Fulton, Michelangelo Veltri, Anton Guadagno, Christian Badea, Robert Lyle, Christopher Keene, Giuliano Carella, Andreas Delfs, Jonathan Darlington, Graeme Jenkins, Stephen Mercurio, Fred Scott, John DeMain, Louis Salemno, Stephen Lord, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, Uroš Lajovic...

Besides direction, Dejan Miladinović has written librettos ("The Power of Virtue", by Kuljerić, "Prometheus" by Bruči, "Mandragola" by Jevtić, "Merry Priests of Banat" by Despić, "In Hoc Signo" by Frisina), composed music and designed sets.

Yugoslav Music ENCYCLOPAEDIA (Zagreb) describes Dejan Miladinović as “an artist of imaginative, bold and unconventional conception. He has directed numerous operas with resounding success. Both audiences and critics unanimously and with delight favour his productions for their obvious theatrical quality and modern direction”.

In his book The Art of Direction (Novi Sad), the author Radoslav Lazić, PhD, wrote, “…Josip Kulundžić, PhD Branko Gavela, PhD Erih Hecel, as well as Mladen Sabljić, Jovan Putnik and Dejan Miladinović have given foundation to modern Serbian opera theatre. They are the creators of Serbian opera theatre of the twentieth century and its aesthetics”. A very successful world opera premiere “In Hoc Signo” in honor of 1700 years of Edict of Milan, directed by Miladinović, took place at the beginning of October 2013, in Belgrade, Serbia.