After two years of leadership and financial turmoil, the tottering New York City Opera has found a saviour in the form of its impresario and conductor George R. Steel, and has appointed him as its General Manager and Artistic Director.

Steel has been selected after a highly public dispute, wherein Gerard Mortier, Director of the Paris Opera claimed the board's reduced budget was a hindrance to the fulfillment of his artistic vision.

Founded in 1943, with help from Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, the nation's second most important opera house is the 'people's opera', accessible and affordable, offering innovative productions to young American singers. The company's recent struggles, could fill a libretto of jilted lovers, betrayal and sudden reversals of fortune, as opera lovers hope Steel's arrival will quell the turbulent plotlines.

Samuel Barber's ' Antony and Cleopatra', the centerpiece of City Opera's minimalist season, was given approval by board, when it met on Wednesday, a day before the first of its two concert performances at Carnegie Hall. Belgian born Mortier kept City Opera inactive, as its' Lincoln Centre and the David H. Koch Theatre underwent renovations, a move that not only resulted in lost revenues, high fixed expenses, but together with the recession put the company under financial pressure.

Steel, 42, who started as General Director at the smaller and less prestigious Dallas Opera, begins 1st February, explaining his jump to City Opera as the 'opportunity of a lifetime'.