Mo. Karen Keltner, Resident Conductor of San Diego Opera, regularly appears with her home company, most recently in 2011 as conductor for a critically acclaimed Faust by Charles Gounod. Among the many productions conducted for her home company, highlights have included Don Quichotte (Don Quixote) by Massenet, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers and Carmen, La bohème, Roméo et Juliette, and the San Diego Opera premieres of Samson and Delilah and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Also included have been Così fan tutte, Samuel Barber’s haunting Vanessa, Salome by Richard Strauss, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, and the bel canto favorites, The Barber of Seville, La cenerentola, Don Pasquale, The Italian Girl in Algiers, and The Elixir of Love. In addition to Wozzeck, Keltner has also conducted notable performances of many of San Diego Opera’s contemporary works, including 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. The conductor also collaborated with composer/director Gian Carlo Menotti in presenting performances of Amahl and the Night Visitors, and The Medium and The Telephone. 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 Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, and the Vancouver and Winnipeg 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 St. Exupéry fantasy. Summer 2012 marked Keltner’s sixteenth season with Utah Festival Opera and Music Theatre where she led multiple performances of Tosca and My Fair Lady, the latter breaking all ticket sales records in that company’s 20-year history. Other UFOMT credits are Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Robert Ward’s The Crucible, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, and staples of the repertoire including Cavalleria Rusticana, La traviata, Pagliacci, La bohème, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, Aida, and The Merry Widow, 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, Most Happy Fella, and Guys and Dolls. Utah’s 2013 summer season will see her at the helm of The Flying Dutchman and Fiddler on the Roof. Keltner is a native Hoosier from South Bend, Indiana, and received her Doctorate from Indiana University’s esteemed School of Music where she also earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music as well as a B.A. in French and two degrees from the University of Strasbourg in France. She taught French diction for singers for the I.U. School of Music and beginning French in the I.U. Department of French and Italian. Keltner often 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”.