Daniela Schillaci
Soprano

Graduated with top marks in voice from the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, she won the Giuseppe Di Stefano Competition in Trapani in 1998 as Best Young Singer.

She immediately began a brilliant career, debuting in Così fan tutte (Despina) at the Opera Giocosa in Savona; Werther (Sophie) in Spoleto; Un ballo in maschera (Oscar) in Venice and Catania; La sonnambula (Lisa) in Rome, Messina, and Palermo; Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (Elena) in Messina and at the Opéra de Lausanne; Turandot (Liù) in Seoul; I Lombardi alla prima crociata at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Ariane et Barbe-bleu, Thaïs and Peter Grimes in Turin, Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Menotti’s Il telefono in Catania; Carmen at the Rome Opera, the Arena di Verona, and in Ascoli Piceno; La serva padrona in Florence and Rome.

Over the years she embraced increasingly demanding repertoire: The Merry Widow, as Valencienne at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and as Hanna Glawari at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Teatro Verdi in Padua, Bassano del Grappa and Rovigo; Stiffelio (Lina) in Catania; Falstaff (Alice) in Lisbon and Shanghai, marking the opera’s debut in China; La Bohème (Mimì and Musetta) in Rome, Florence, Trieste, Messina, Venice, Bari, Düsseldorf, Essen, Ekaterinburg, and Catania; Pagliacci in Krasnoyarsk, Catania, and Shanghai; La Traviata (Violetta) in Messina, Trapani, Catania, Palermo, Ekaterinburg, Lisbon, and Shanghai; Norma (title role) in Catania, Taormina, Cagliari, Seville, Rovigo, and Naples; Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira) in Ekaterinburg, Turin, and at the Arena di Verona, directed by Franco Zeffirelli; Aida in Almaty and at the Teatro Antico in Taormina.

She has worked with renowned conductors including Roberto Abbado, Gianpaolo Bisanti, Roberto Gianola, Julian Kovatchev, Nello Santi, Antonio Pirolli, Alain Lombard, Fabio Mastrangelo, Zubin Mehta, Gianandrea Noseda, Plácido Domingo, Seiji Ozawa, and Yutaka Sado; and with directors such as Robert Carsen, Paul Curran, Willy Decker, Hugo De Ana, Francesco Esposito, Yannis Kokkos, Stefano Poda, and Franco Zeffirelli. She recorded Paisiello’s Il Socrate immaginario for Bongiovanni.

She also maintains an intense concert activity, including the gala “La corona di pietra” at the Arena di Verona alongside Plácido Domingo. She has appeared in several galas at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg and at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, conducted by Fabio Mastrangelo.

Among her recent productions: Il Trovatore, Macbeth, Attila, and Madama Butterfly at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari; Bellini’s La straniera (Alaide), La Traviata, Carmen, and Pagliacci in Catania; Madama Butterfly, La forza del destino, Nabucco, Aida, I Lombardi alla prima crociata (Giselda), and Un ballo in maschera at the Croatian National Theatre in Split; Norma in Rennes; Nabucco at the Arena di Verona (conducted by Daniel Oren); Madama Butterfly in Modena; Un ballo in maschera in Reggio Emilia; Macbeth at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (conducted by Marco Armiliato), in Bologna, and in Prague; Carmen at the Arena di Verona; La Traviata and Turandot in Catania; Stiffelio at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona; and Pagliacci (Nedda) in Modena and Piacenza.

Upcoming engagements in the 2025–26 season include: Nabucco, Macbeth, and Aida at the National Theatre in Prague, and Turandot at the Cologne Opera.

August 2025