Daniel Carter is Generalmusikdirektor of Landestheater Coburg, one of the youngest Generalmusikdirektors in Germany and the youngest in the history of the house. Most recently in Coburg he has conducted numerous symphonic programs as well as Siegfried, Die Götterdämmerung and Die Walküre (as a continuation of the complete Coburger Ring), La damnation de Faust, Der goldene Hahn, The Rake’s Progress, L’Heure Espagnole and L’Enfant et les sortileges. He has also debuted with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig conducting Siegfried, at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro conducting Il Viaggio a Reims, in addition to La Bohème in Meiningen, Pelléas et Mélisande in Bern, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Carmen, Die Fledermaus and Don Quichotte at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Nixon in China at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Staatsoper Hannover and returns to the orchestra in Freiburg and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The most important engagements in Daniel Carter’s 2025 season include his return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for Nixon in China, The Flying Dutchman, Jenufa and Il Trittico for Coburg Landestheater, and orchestral concerts in Würzburg, Weimar and in Coburg.
In recent seasons he has given his Debuts at the Vienna State Opera (Die Zauberflöte), at Malmö Opera for a new production of Turandot, at Oper Köln (La Bohème), at Konzerttheater Bern (Kurt Weill’s Love Life), Theater Trier (Hänsel und Gretel), Theater Erfurt (Die Zauberflöte), Essen (Carmen), the National Theatre in Mannheim (The Magic Flute) and with the Münchener Kammerorchester, the Akademie of the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
From 2019-2021 he was Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he continues to be regularly invited and his repertoire there includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Bohème, The Tales of Hoffmann, Hänsel and Gretel and The Barber of Seville, Der fliegende Holländer, Turandot, Nabucco, La Traviata, Rigoletto and Die Fledermaus. During this period he also undertook a European tour with the Australian Youth Orchestra as Associate Conductor and also as conductor in Australia with the AYO’s Momentum Ensemble.
Daniel made his mainstage debut for Victorian Opera conducting the Australian premieres of Elliott Carter’s What Next? and Manuel de Falla’s El Retable de Maese Pedro, which resulted in return invitations to conduct El Gato con Botas, Rush Hour, the world premiere of Calvin Bowman’s The Magic Pudding (for which he was nominated a Green Room Award for Best Conductor) and performances of Victorian Opera’s Threepenny Opera at Sydney Theatre Company. He also assisted on Nixon in China (Adams) for Victorian Opera. Prior to his debut with Victorian Opera, he was awarded the Susan Harley Living Bequest, which enabled him to travel to New York to study What Next? with the composer, Elliott Carter.
Daniel began his association with Opera Australia as Assistant Conductor on Così fan tutte and Aida, and as conductor on the Opera Australia 2013 Tour of Don Giovanni. He has also conducted Sydney Symphony Orchestra; the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (as part of the Young Performers’ Awards Grand Final); the Melbourne and Sydney Festivals, including performances of Pierrot Lunaire with soloist Merlyn Quaife at the Melbourne Recital Centre, and Melbourne Youth Music and Willoughby Symphony.
While assistant to Simone Young and resident repetiteur at the Staatsoper Hamburg, his performances included Die Zauberflöte, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and a double bill for the Opera Studio of In the Locked Room (Watkins) and Persona (Langemann).
Following his engagement in Hamburg, Daniel conducted Carmen and a premiere season of Gluck’s Orphee for Theater Freiburg, Germany, which led to his appointment in 2015 as First Kapellmeister. During his Freiburg engagement he conducted The Makropulos Case, the world premieres of Crusades (Vollmer) and Kaspar Hauser (Thomalla), L’Elisir d’Amore, Così fan tutte, Cendrillon (Massenet), Mefistofele (Boito), I Gioielli della Madonna (Wolf-Ferrari), and Philharmonic Orchestral concerts for the company, as well as Il Trovatore in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Daniel Carter graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Music (Honours) having studied Composition and Piano. In 2012, he won the Brian Stacey Memorial Award for Emerging Conductors after completing a two year period as a Developing Artist Conductor/Repetiteur with Victorian Opera. A graduate of the Symphony Services International Core Conductors Program, he worked with the symphony orchestras in Queensland, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Perth, Sydney and Auckland and also taught at Symphony Services International as part of the Scholar Conductors Program.