Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts LA Opera in Puccini's 'La Rondine'

Don't ask her about him, though.

During a recent pre-rehearsal interview in Plácido Domingo's spacious office, the statuesque (6-foot) Wilson, 41, declined to talk about her husband or about how her five-year marriage might affect her career. She said she prefers to keep her professional and personal lives separate.

And anyway, it's the experience she acquired playing in orchestras, she believes, that has given her an edge. As she explained, she never set out to be an opera conductor or, for that matter, even a conductor.

A native of Winnipeg, Canada, Wilson majored in flute at New York's Juilliard School. But eight months before graduating with a master's degree, she made "an overnight decision" to try for a conducting career.

"It was taking a huge step backward," she said. "Here I had mastered my instrument and I was doing something I was completely unfamiliar with."

Well, not completely. Wilson grew up in a musical family. Her grandfather was a singer. Her grandmother was a pianist. Her father was the conductor of the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra.

"At home, I had already experienced a lot of things that would lead eventually to becoming a conductor," she said, "not only in the sense of hearing music and being exposed to scores and all the instruments I wanted to play, but also answering the phone and going on tours and helping out my father administratively."

In addition, while still a student, Wilson had prepared for the transition to a new career by working as an assistant to veteran conductor Claudio Abbado at the summer Salzburg Festival in Austria and as a conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. And, immediately after graduating, she was hired as associate conductor of the Dallas Symphony, a post she held for four years before turning freelance. Since then, she has divided her time about evenly between opera and orchestral repertory.