Australian conductor Daniel Carter, currently music director at the Landestheater Coburg in Germany, has been named Music Director of the German National Theatre and State Orchestra in Weimar. The contract will commence in September of this year.

It’s a prestigious appointment. The theatre opened in 1791 and the orchestra was originally founded in 1491, making it the second oldest in the world. It’s also the theatre where Wagner’s Lohengrin, Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel, and Strauss’ Don Juan and Death and Transfiguration received their world premieres. Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss were all Music Directors there in their day.

The orchestra has 100 members and Carter will conduct approximately 40 opera and symphony orchestra performances per year.

Daniel Carter. Photo supplied

A protégé of the late Richard Gill and of Simone Young, who took him to Hamburg State Opera as her assistant while she was chief there, Carter has also assisted Donald Runnicles at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin and continues to conduct performances there regularly, including a recent production of John Adams’ Nixon in China.

Carter will shape the artistic development of the Staatskapelle as an opera orchestra and the further development of the opera ensemble and...