Daniel Smith

“Se tu non ci fossi, bisognerebbe inventarti.”

Well, this was certainly unexpected.

After several years conducting at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, I have somehow ended up in Italian crime fiction.

Nicoletta Retteghieri followed my work at the Carlo Felice over the years, and in her new novel, “Assassinio al Carlo Felice”, the conductor Damien Scott was modelled on me, initials and all.

The book is set in the operatic world of the theatre, with Genova, theatre life, mystery, and a murder at the Carlo Felice. As for the fate of my fictional alter ego, I shall be giving no spoilers.

Thank you, Nicoletta. I am touched that those years at the Carlo Felice found their way into your imagination and onto the page.

Now to discover what Damien Scott gets up to.

I flew from Singapore to Rome. My baggage tag said Rome, the airline system said Warsaw, and my AirTag said Frankfurt, despite the minor detail that I went nowhere near Warsaw or Frankfurt. My suitcase had apparently chosen to pursue other opportunities. I shared the AirTag location with the airline, and the suitcase was found. Safe to say, I won’t be travelling without one again.

I will open the 2026/27 season at Teatro Grande di Brescia conducting Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice in a new production directed by Rodula Gaitanou, and will then conduct the production at Teatro Sociale di Como, Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna, Teatro Municipale Valli, Reggio Emilia, Teatro Ponchielli di Cremona and Teatro Fraschini di Pavia. Occupying a significant part of my 2026 and 2027 season, this extended project marks a major artistic commitment with one of the most singular and important operas of the twentieth century. To be entrusted with Death in Venice across such a span is a responsibility I value greatly.

📷 Marco Borggreve
📆 Studio Longardi

Daniel Smith Online Official website of the Australian Maestro. Laureate of the UNESCO Fitelberg, Solti, Mancinelli and Lutosławski International Conductor Competitions and “one of the most outstanding musicians of our time”.

On 2 April, Daniel Smith and Arsenii Moon join the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto at the Teatro Verdi in Padova!
The programme features Čiurlionis’ Miške (Italian première), Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5 “Egyptian”, and Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess Suite (Catfish Row).
See you in Padova!

https://www.opvorchestra.it/calendario/2026/04/02/2289/

Photos by Marco Borggreve and Alina Yankovskaya

A further press review has been published for our La Cenerentola in Lucca. Thank you to Orchestra della Toscana, the cast, chorus, the creative team, and everyone at Teatro del Giglio for the work behind this production. English translation below:

“Smith insists on the ethical and musical dialectic at the heart [of La Cenerentola]: for him, the famous Rossini crescendo is not a mere stylistic signature, but a way of moulding time, an expansion of the dramaturgical breath that serves not to dazzle, but to tell the story. In this sense his conducting seeks a clarity that is not simplification, but honesty, ‘clarity of the words, of the relationships, of the musical lines’. Rossini, Smith reminds us, is never pure virtuosity, but controlled vertigo, millimetre-precise accuracy, pure theatre. And when the Orchestra della Toscana follows him in this perspective, with its transparency, its flashes, its timbral smiles, the theatre resonates with a lightness that is not emptiness, but depth made weightless by intelligence.

If the performers bring the energy, it is Maestro Daniel Smith’s conducting that provides the framework in which that energy takes shape. Smith leads the Orchestra della Toscana with a sure and intelligent hand, building a sound that is compact, measured, crystal-clear in detail, brilliant when required and reflective in those moments when Rossini asks the drama to breathe. This is a Rossini that is limpid and lean, articulated with elegance; it never rushes, never pushes the tempi and, above all, it listens. He listens to the singers, supports them, welcomes them; his gesture includes rather than imposes, and this is what allows the company, with all its strengths and its fragilities, to find a musical whole that is always coherent. Even when a slight vocal inaccuracy or a moment of uncertainty on stage risks creating an imbalance, the conductor intervenes with the natural ease that belongs to true music theatre, adjusting the orchestra’s breathing without ever letting the effort be perceived. The Orchestra della Toscana responds with precision, with carefully judged tempo and phrasing, with a sound that maintains transparency and lightness while never renouncing a certain bite in the most theatrical passages. The strings are compact, the woodwinds lively, the brass carefully controlled. Rossini, as we know, lives in the details, and here the details emerge without heaviness.” - Simone Tomei (Gli Amici della Musica)

🎭 Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini
🎶 Orchestra della Toscana
🤵‍♂️ Tommaso Lagattolla Sartoria Penna
📆 Studio Longardi

Daniel Smith Online Official website of the Australian Maestro. Laureate of the UNESCO Fitelberg, Solti, Mancinelli and Lutosławski International Conductor Competitions and “one of the most outstanding musicians of our time”.