Opera

Nicholas Smith has been Artistic Director of Kuopio Opera in Finland, South Carolina Opera and the Palmetto Opera in the USA, and Bollington Festival Opera in England. He has also conducted five productions for Buxton Opera Festival.

His repertoire is broad, from baroque to first performances of commissioned operas.

Nick’s tenure in Kuopio drew huge audiences. All major productions required at least a dozen performances, with over thirty performances of the Bartered Bride in one season. 

Similarly the South Carolina Opera, the resident company at Newberry Opera House, gave at least eight performances of each production.

For Buxton Opera Festival he was in charge of operas involving children’s chorus in otherwise professional productions of largely contemporary repertoire. Operas by Nicola Lefanu, Ian McQueen, Benjamin Britten and Jonathan Dove all won him high acclaim from audiences and press.

Operas and
operettas performed

Bernstein
West Side Story

Bizet
Carmen

Britten
Albert Herring
Noah’s Fludde

Donizetti
Don Pasquale

Dove
Tobias and the Angel

Gershwin
Porgy and Bess (concert version)

Gounod
Faust

Haydn
Il Mondo della Luna

Humperdinck
Hansel and Gretel

Lefanu
The Green Children

Lehar
Die Lustige Witwe

McQueen
Hollow Hill

Menotti
Amahl and the Night Visitors

Mozart
Cosi fan tutte
Don Giovanni
Le Nozze di Figaro
Der Schauspieldirektor
Die Zauberflote

Offenbach
Orphee aux Enfers

Puccini
La Boheme
Tosca

Purcell
Dido and Aeneas

Rossini
Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Smetana
The Bartered Bride

Smith
The Monkey Run
Food: the Opera
Weather or Not

Strauss
Die Fledermaus

Sullivan
Trial by Jury
Mikado
Pirates of Penzance

Verdi
Un Ballo in Maschera
Nabucco
Rigoletto