Sought after as a guest conductor at renowned opera houses around the world, Fabrizio Carminati boasts a repertoire of more than 50 operas, ranging from representatives of the bel canto style to 20th-century Italian and German composers (including Paisiello, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Cilea, Menotti and Humperdinck).
 Playing an important role in his career from the very beginning has been Turin's Teatro Regio, where he went on to serve as artistic director, assistant intendant and, between 2001 and 2006, as the theatre's director. He also served as the artistic director of the Donizetti Theatre from 2000 to 2004 and of the Arena di Verona from 2004 to 2006.
The sweeping success of his performances of Andrea Chénier, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci led to his being named first guest conductor of the Opéra de Marseilles in 2008, a position that he retained until 2015. Each year there, he gave six symphonic concerts with programmes that spanned from the Baroque to 20th-century music.
In recent years, he has conducted Macbeth, Lucia di Lammermoor, Norma, Rigoletto, L'elisir d'amore, La traviata, Anna Bolena, Adriana Lecouvreur, Cavalleria rusticana, Tosca and other works in such venues as Bari's Teatro Petruzelli, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence, Venice's Teatro La Fenice, the Teatro Regio in Parma, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Opéra de Rouen and Oman's Royal Opera House Muscat.

 He has released recordings on the BMG, Ricordi, Dynamic and Bongiovanni labels.