A day after the New York City Opera (NYCO) named George R. Steel, experienced arts administrator and conductor, as its new general manager and artistic director, the company roared back to musical life, giving its first of just two scheduled complete operatic performances for the season, Samuel Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra" (premiere of original version 1966, revised version 1975)-after William Shakespeare's play-in its NYCO premiere in concert at Carnegie Hall on January 15, to be repeated the following night. This revival of the too little performed, too little appreciated work, of grandeur and intimacy in antiquity in alternation, proved a triumph for the opera, for the company and its choral and orchestral forces, under NYCO Music Director George Manahan's baton, and for the large cast, headed with distinction by Lauren Flanigan and Teddy Tahu Rhodes (City Opera debut) in the roles of the eponymous charismatic rulers of Egypt and Rome, created at the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center by Leontyne Price and Justino Díaz. Flanigan had also taken the title role in last season's successful NYCO premiere of the composer's earlier "Vanessa" (1958), also commissioned by the Met.

Evocatively swathed in a golden robe, versatile soprano Flanigan lent laser-like, silvery sound to music of Cleopatra, not the plush lirico-spinto of Price, but no less valid. With intensity and sensitivity alike, Flanigan freshly illuminated not only the two best-known arias, the languid "Give me some music" and noble "Give me my robe, put on my crown," the suicide scene, but also Cleopatra's mournful "Noblest of men," after Antony dies, and determined "Now, Iras, what think'st thou," when she resolves to spoil, with her death, Octavius Caesar's plan to parade her, in shame, as his vanquished victim, a trophy of his victory over her and Antony.

Well-known here from his appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, as Ned Keene in Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes," and on television, as the pilot in Rachel Portman's "The Little Prince," baritone Rhodes made an aptly virile Mark Antony, making the most of his moving moments center stage, "Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon it," his lament for his lost soldiers and lost honor, and "Thrice-nobler than myself," when, thinking Cleopatra dead, he impales himself on his own sword.

Flanigan and Rhodes fittingly made sparks fly when they joined voices in duet, whether in ecstasy, as in "Oh take, oh take those lips away," added to the revision, or in anger or hurt born of misunderstanding or duty at odds with love.

In contrast with the perfumed strains that characterize Cleopatra's exotic Egypt, scenes at the Roman Senate crackle with hostility, and Simon O'Neill limned the legendary pair's foe, Caesar, in penetrating tenor tone.

Mezzo-sopranos Sandra Piques Eddy and Laura Vlasak Nolen, as Cleopatra's faithful attendants Charmian and Iras, enlivened their playful scenes and sympathetically seconded their mistress in her grief in the serious ones. Offering Antony no less strong support, as his loyal friend, Enobarbus, and Eros, his boyish shield-bearer, were bass-baritone David Pittsinger and tenor Kevin Massey (debut).

Kudos go to the chorus, as the people of Rome and Egypt, guided by chorus master Charles F. Prestinari, and to Manahan's players for their distinguished contributions to this realization of Barber's colorful opus.

Next on tap for City Opera are three programs at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Lenox Avenue at 135th Street, in Harlem) in honor of Black History Month and concerning African-American works and artists that have played a part at NYCO (January 28); soprano Camilla Williams, now 88 years old, the company's first African-American diva, who made her NYCO debut in the title role in "Madama Butterfly" in 1946 (February 11); and William Grant Still and Langston Hughes' opera "Troubled Island," which received its NYCO and world premiere in 1949 (March 31). For tickets, at $10 for each event, call the Schomburg Shop at 212/491-2206 or visit www.Telecharge.com.