Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- New York City Opera -- the 65-year- old company that’s homeless, leaderless and short of money -- is in talks to hire George Steel from the Dallas Opera as general manager.

Steel confirmed the negotiations today through a spokeswoman. “I have talked to a few people but nothing’s changed and no offer has been made,” Steel said through the spokeswoman, Aleba Gartner.

Steel joined Dallas, a high-profile regional company, in October. For 11 years he ran Columbia University’s Miller Theatre and won acclaim presenting a mix of new music, opera, dance and theater.

He would replace incoming impresario Gerard Mortier, who quit City Opera last month after complaining that its budget was too small for his ambition.

Susan L. Baker, City Opera’s chairwoman, didn’t return calls.

Gartner said Steel “might be interested” in the job. He’d expressed concern about the challenges facing the Dallas Opera moving into the Norman Foster-designed Winspear Opera House, part of the roughly $275 million Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.

“They’re not really getting it,” Gartner said.

The new opera house in Dallas is scheduled to open on Oct. 23 with a production of Verdi’s “Otello.”

Bigger Stage

Steel would take over a larger stage, literally. The Miller has about 700 seats, Dallas’s new Winspear Opera house will have 2200 and City Opera’s David H. Koch Theater has about 2,700. It’s currently being renovated.

Steel’s defection would disappoint the local arts community.

“I had lunch with him recently and was very impressed,” said Roger Horchow, a Dallas arts patron, Broadway producer and catalog magnate. “I don’t know why he would leave. He has a brand new opera house and he’s moved his family here.”

While Steel did move his family to Dallas, he kept an apartment in New York, Gartner said.

In 2007, Dallas Opera’s budget was $11.5 million. City Opera spends about four times that annually and in the year ending June 2006 ran a deficit of about $3 million, according to its tax return. New York’s Metropolitan Opera, City Opera’s Lincoln Center neighbor, has an annual budget exceeding $200 million.

Contemporary-Music Specialist

Raised in a Maryland suburb of Washington, Steel is a specialist in contemporary music and a conductor and composer. He has said often that he strictly picks music that inspires him.

“In the performing arts business, there’s an enormous amount of programming that goes on because you think you’re supposed to do it,” Steel said in an interview this month in Playbillarts.com. “It’s profoundly dull, it radiates dullness, and it drives people away in droves. You have to develop a trust in your own instincts.”

Steel opened the Miller’s fall season with Iannis Xenakis’s “Oresteia.” The adaptation of Aeschylus’s trilogy incorporates opera, dance and projections.

The Belgian-born Mortier quit City Opera nine months before he was scheduled to take over fulltime. He said that he would not be able to lead City Opera “given the significantly reduced funds available” to transform the opera house according to his vision.

Mortier’s demand for a $60 million budget couldn’t be met, Baker said. He is serving out his term heading the Opera de Paris and will take over the Teatro Real opera house in Madrid.

Rumors Circulated

Ward Halla, a former president of the Dallas Opera Guild, said that rumors about Steel’s talks with City Opera had circulated since Mortier’s departure.

The Koch Theater, formerly the New York State Theater, is home to City Opera and the New York City Ballet. Its renovation is scheduled to be completed next year in time for the 2009-10 season.

The ballet, led by Peter Martins, made sure the company was ensconced for its lucrative winter season. The opera, which sought unsuccessfully for years to move to a new home, has been wandering among out-of-the-way venues in all five boroughs until the renovation is complete.

Dallas was inspired by Steel’s appointment, along with that of Kevin Moriarty, the new artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, said Patrick Kelly, chairman of the theater department at the University of Dallas.

“There has been a real sense of the arts coming back to life in Dallas,” Kelly said. “It would be a real loss if George leaves.”

-- With reporting by Jeremy Gerard. Editors: Mary Romano, Daniel Billy.

To contact the reporter on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 22, 2008 12:56 EST