Resident Conductor

Maestro Karen Keltner, Resident Conductor of San Diego Opera, regularly appears with her home company, in 2008 as conductor for The Pearl Fishers, and in 2007 conducting the SDO premieres of Samson and Delilah and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Carmen, Così fan tutte, and Samuel Barber’s haunting Vanessa were her 2006 and 2005 offerings. Keltner 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), A Streetcar Named Desire by André Previn (2001), Floyd’s Of Mice and Men (1999), The Conquistador by Myron Fink (1997), and The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies (1986). Among the almost thirty productions conducted by Keltner in San Diego are included Salome, The Pearl Fishers, 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, and The Medium and The Telephone, both directed by Gian Carlo Menotti.

During past years, Maestro Keltner has appeared as guest conductor with l’Opéra du Rhin, 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. Keltner’s 2006 summer productions included Verdi’s Il trovatore and Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella.

Karen Keltner, a native Hoosier from South Bend, Indiana, holds 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 universities and cities 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 was honored by The Girls Scouts of America as one of its ten “Cool Women of 2006”.