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Maestro of Beautiful Singing
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KAREN
KELTNER Maestro of Beautiful Singing |
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"I
want to conduct. How do I become a conductor?" she
asked the female maestro who conducted a campus concert one evening. "Go out there and do it," she was told. AND SHE DID! |
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be sure, she did not get "from here to there" in one short, straight
line. In fact, until that revelatory concert, conducting was not even on
her radar screen. Richly credentialed with a bachelor's degree in French
from Indiana University (IU), a year's study at the University of Strasbourg,
a summer with the famed Nadia Boulanger, and a doctorate in music also from
IU - she had set her sights on teaching French and music. Which she did
for a few years - as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Central
Florida in Orlando, until 1980 when opera - and San Diego - beckoned in
the form of a master class for aspiring conductors. She was one of five,
and the only woman,* to be accepted into the Young American Opera Conductors'
Program, an innovative project of then San Diego Opera general director
Tito Capobianco. There was no other program like it anywhere else. It was
for Keltner a second revelation and "the greatest gift I could have had for my musical career." Opera was it! She was so fascinated with the art form that soon after she returned to Florida, she gladly accepted Copabianco's offer to come back to San Diego and direct for a semester the Opera Institute at the San Diego State University. When the program ended, Keltner, throwing security-of-tenure to the wind, decided to resign her teaching position in Florida and stay in San Diego, even when there was no definite employment in sight. She got by with a few odd jobs, all musically-related. Then she learned about apprenticeships in singing, coaching and directing being offered by the National Opera Institute. Realizing that there was no apprenticeship for conducting, Keltner created her own opportunity and wrote a proposal for the establishment of one. It was approved, and the first apprenticeship in conducting was awarded to Keltner herself. Capobianco was so thrilled he asked her to conduct the final performance of Prokokiev's The Love for Three Oranges in 1981. That marked her professional conducting debut. And she was stunned, for although she had worked as an assistant to the conductor, "I never had the baton in my hand in front of the orchestra and a stage full of singers. Without any rehearsal, I just walked into the pit and DID IT!" In 1982, when the position of Resident Conductor and Music Adminstrator of the San Diego Opera became available, Keltner stepped in, only two years after she risked all for opera. "I fell in love with the world of professional opera, and couldn't bear not being there," she said then. Happily for her and the opera lovers of San Diego, Keltner has been THERE ever since! Karen Keltner has led the San Diego Opera in more than 30 productions and concerts. In the 2009 International Season, she conducts Jules Massenet's Don Quixote, featuring an all-star cast. Past regular appearances with her home company include The Pearl Fishers (2008), the SDO premieres of Saint-Säens' Samson and Delilah and Alban Berg's Wozzeck (2007). Carmen, Così fan tutte, and Samuel Barber's haunting Vanessa were her 2006 and 2005 offerings. She has conducted notable performances of many of San Diego Opera's contemporary works, among them Tobias Picker's Thérèse Raquin (April 2003), Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree (2002), André Previn's Streetcar Named Desire (2001), Floyd's Of Mice and Men (1999), Myron Fink's The Conquistador (1997), and Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse (1986). Other productions conducted by Keltner in San Diego are: Salome, The Flying Dutchman, Rigoletto, Faust, The Barber of Seville, Die Fledermaus, The Merry Widow, La Périchole, Cenerentola, Don Pasquale, The Italian Girl in Algiers, The Elixir of Love, The Love for Three Oranges, The Medium and The Telephone, the last two both directed by Gian Carlo Menotti. Maestro Keltner has also appeared as guest conductor with l'Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg, France (A Streetcar Named Desire), Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (Of Mice and Men), Pittsburgh Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor, Barber), Glimmerglass Opera (Yeomen of the Guard), The Opera Company of Philadelphia (Salome), Seattle Opera (Hansel and Gretel), New York City Opera (La bohème), Vancouver (Canada) Opera (Of Mice and Men), and Winnepeg (Canada) Opera (Madama Butterfly). She has been a regular guest with Opera Carolina in Charlotte, NC, conducting, among others, Salome, Tosca, Cold Sassy Tree, and, to inaugurate Charlotte's new opera house, Aida. In fall 2002 Keltner opened the 45th season of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City with 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, and Nashville Opera, where she returned in fall of 2004 to lead a double bill of Poulenc's La Voix Humaine and The Lighthouse, by Peter Maxwell Davies. Summer 2006 marked the conductor's tenth season with Utah Festival Opera where she has conducted, among others, Robert Ward's The Crucible, and staples of the repertoire including La bohème, Nabucco, Rigoletto, and Susannah, as well as many of the great American musicals: South Pacific, Carousel, Brigadoon, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, and Man of La Mancha. Her 2006 summer productions included Verdi's Il trovatore and Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella. Quite a repertoire. BRAVO, MAESTRO! * Still a rarity even today, the female conductor was even more unusual then. When Italian conductor Edoardo Müller first met the master class he was to teach in 1980, he stared at Karen Keltner and declared: "This would never be possible in Italy!" Though her heart sank with the remark, obviously Keltner was undaunted, and today, Müller and Keltner are among the best of friends. Note: Quotes by Karen Keltner are from: 1. John Patrick Ford, "Big Step to the Podium," Performing Arts, Performing Arts Network, April 1999, p.16; and 2. Opera Now, August/September 1995 Photo:© FanFaire |
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