Music: New Man at the Center

When the New York City Opera Company stops trying to compete with the Metropolitan and sticks to lighthearted masterpieces or frank innovations—Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Rossini's Cinderella, Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, Berg's Wozzeck—it is hard to beat. But it has had trouble keeping its conductor-managers. The man who runs the City Opera, like any opera manager, must be diplomatic, versatile and tough; he must convince the public that his programs are worthwhile, his singers that they are getting parts worthy of their talents, his board of directors that he knows what...