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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! |
| To
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 2002 season, she conducted Verdi's Rigoletto and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman and in 2003, she conducts the western premiere of Tobias Picker's opera Thérèse Raquin. 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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