..."Spending three weeks in elementary schools teaching about opera and, at the end of each week, starring in the production, gave Christine Renee Keene, an opera singer who played the Librarian, the chance to feel like a big star.
“This has been like my own little Hollywood. The kids see me in the hall and wave and say ‘Hi miss opera singer,’ and they try to sing. It has been so much fun,” she said.
Keene said she remembers guest artists that visited her schools when she was young, and it had an impact on her decision to pursue a career in stage performance. Witnessing such a thing as an opera performance at such an early age, especially one they played an active role in, will give the students ‘more of an opportunity to see what is out there in the world.”
“These kids see Disney type of stuff all the time and maybe that is all they see. I asked one of the girls (at Immaculate Conception) if she would want to do this and she said, ‘Yes,’ so it makes a difference,” she said.
The hardest part of her grouchy role was not hitting those high, strong notes, or the low ones, Keene said: It was holding that angry grimmace throughout much of the production. She is naturally a smiler, she said."... -- Erica Goff, Fairbanks Daily News Miner, November 2, 2008
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"2004 winner, soprano Christine Keene, most recently busy with operatic roles in Austria - she sang a big scene from Mozart's "Idomeneo" - has become totally secure in her higher register with improved breath control and a remarkable hall-filling voice." "But the most telling musical moment came in the first half of the program, a selection of Bernstein songs from his early Broadway era, when Keene sang “My House” from Peter Pan. In this number, one could hear her well-supported soprano “play” the space, drawing just a little reverb from the beams and walls. Keene’s characterization of a 10-year-old also charmed in the cycle “I Hate Music.”"
--Anchorage Daily News, May 28, 2008
-- Mike Dunham, Anchorage Daily News, Feb. 14, 2007
