Resident Conductor
Maestro Karen Keltner, Resident Conductor of San Diego Opera, regularly appears with her home company, most recently in 2010 as conductor for the critically acclaimed Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod, and to open the 2010 seaon, Puccini’s beloved La bohème. Among the over 35 productions conducted for her home company, highlights have included Don Quichotte (Don Quixote) by Massenet, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and the San Diego Opera premieres of Samson and Delilahand Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Also included have been Carmen, Così fan tutte, Samuel Barber’s haunting Vanessa, Salome by Strauss, The Flying Dutchman, and the bel canto favorites, The Barber of Seville, Cenerentola, Don Pasquale, The Italian Girl in Algiers, and The Elixir of Love. Keltner has conducted notable performances of many of San Diego Opera’s contemporary works, including the aforementioned Wozzeck, Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin, Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men and Cold Sassy Tree, A Streetcar Named Desire by André Previn, The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies, and The Conquistador by San Diego’s own Myron Fink.
Keltner also collaborated with the well-known composer Gian Carlo Menotti, during his lifetime, in performances of Amahl and the Night Visitors, and The Medium and The Telephone, with Menotti as stage director.
During past years, Maestro Keltner has appeared as guest conductor with l’Opéra du Rhin, in the cities of Strasbourg and Nancy in France, The Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Pittsburgh Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, The Opera Company of ,Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, and the Vancouver and Winnepeg Operas in Canada. She has been a regular guest artist with Opera Carolina in Charlotte, NC, conducting among others, Carmen, Salome, Tosca, Cold Sassy Tree, and led Verdi’s Aida to inaugurate Charlotte’s new Opera House in 2002. Maestro Keltner also opened the 45th season of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City with performances of La bohème. Other guest appearances have been with Austin Lyric Opera, Utah Opera in Salt Lake City, Chautauqua Opera (NY), Orlando Opera (FL), Sacramento Opera, Nashville Opera, and the Opera Theatre of Weston where among others, she premiered the Vermont performances of Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, based on the beloved story by St. Exupéry.
Summer 2010 marked the Keltner’s fourteenth season with Utah Festival Opera where she led performances of Robert Ward’s The Crucible, Floyd’s Susannah, and staples of the repertoire including Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, La bohème, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and Aida, as well as many of the great American musicals: South Pacific, Carousel, Brigadoon, Fiddler on the Roof, Kismet, 1776, I Do, I Do, The Sound of Music, Man of La Mancha, and Most Happy Fella. Utah’s 2011 summer season will see her at the helm of La traviata and Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls.
Karen Keltner, a native Hoosier from South Bend, Indiana, now based in San Diego, holds multiple degrees in French from the University of Strasbourg in France and Indiana University. She earned her Doctorate from Indiana University’s esteemed School of Music where she also received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music. The conductor frequently gives master classes for singers and other students of opera in cities and universities where she guest conducts.
In San Diego she has served on the Board of Directors for Rachel’s Women’s Center, a day center providing services and support for homeless women, and in 2006 was honored by The Girls Scouts of America as one of its ten “Cool Women”.