Music: Opera Is Still Alive in New York

Three new works by U.S. composers at Lincoln Center

At the Met, still closed by a labor dispute, all was dark, silent and desolate. But next door at Manhattan's Lincoln Center huge banners fluttered from the balcony of the New York State Theater: NEW YORK CITY OPERA—WHERE OPERA COMES ALIVE. And so it did last week, as the City company presented new works by U.S. composers. In an evening titled "An American Trilogy," the company premiered three one-act works by two well-known New Yorkers, Stanley Silverman and Thomas Pasatieri, and a relatively unknown Middle Westerner, Jan Bach. The results...