New York City Opera’s choice of Gérard Mortier as its next general manager and artistic director means that New Yorkers will soon have the opportunity to see two dynamic — and very different — leaders in the opera field test out their ideas for the future of the art form just across Lincoln Center Plaza from each other.

When Mr. Mortier, now the director of the Opéra National de Paris, takes over his new post in 2009, the two major opera companies in New York, City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, will both be under new leadership. The short tenure of Peter Gelb, who became the Met’s general manager last summer, has already produced substantial excitement and an uptick at the box office. City Opera, which has experienced deficits and declining ticket sales, is hoping that Mr. Mortier’s appointment will have a similar effect.

“When you have a leader as extraordinary as he is and a vision as compelling as his, the whole notion of attendance and fund raising is cast in a new light,” City Opera’s chairwoman, Susan Baker, said. “I think his presence will really galvanize all of this.”

Historically, City Opera, with a budget less than a fifth the size of the Met’s, has prided itself on presenting more new operas and doing productions that are modern and theatrical. Mr. Gelb’s recent initiatives at the Met, which have included new productions and the hiring of directors from Hollywood and Broadway, have made it slightly harder for City Opera to distinguish itself.

But with Mr. Mortier at the helm, attracting attention shouldn’t be a problem. He has tended to stir controversy wherever he has worked — although, in an interview, he denied that he deliberately tries to provoke.

“The ‘Fledermaus’ of Salzburg”—his controversial last production at the Salzburg Festival, in which Prince Orlofsky was a cocaine dealer — “was an exception,” he said. “That was a production I did really to react to Mr. [Jörg] Haider [the extreme right-wing Austrian politician]. That was not typical for me.”

Instead, Mr. Mortier said, his goal is to connect the opera repertoire to the world of today, and to the audience’s emotions. “I am not avantgarde because I want to be avantgarde,” he laughed. “I want to be sensitive to the time we live in.”

Mr. Mortier said that he wants to bring to City Opera American artists he has previously worked with in Europe, including the directors Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson, and the choreographers Trisha Brown and Mark Morris.

He has convinced the board that the company should stay at the New York State Theater, which the outgoing general manager, Paul Kellogg, maintained was acoustically unsuited to opera. Mr. Mortier has proposed expanding the orchestra pit to allow for more strings and possibly building a raked stage, as well as non-acoustic changes such as renovating the lobby.

Ms. Baker stressed that none of Mr. Mortier’s proposals is a fait accompli. “We haven’t had extensive conversations with the [New York City] Ballet, with the City, with Lincoln Center, and that’s all to come,” she said.

Mr. Mortier has also proposed that City Opera should take its productions to theaters in other neighborhoods. “The Met is really Lincoln Center,” he said. “I would like that the City Opera is very much connected to the different communities of New York.”

He has suggested that City Opera moved toward a stagionesystem, in which the company would do one production at a time, allowing for longer rehearsal periods. “I would like to reduce performances, maybe to 80 performances a year, and have more time for rehearsals,” Mr. Mortier said. (The number of performances this year is 108.) While fewer performances would mean less revenue, a stagione system could also save money by reducing the costs of changing sets twice a day — which would likely meet with protests from unions. “This is his vision, but there’s lots of bases to touch, many conversations to be had,” Ms. Baker said.

People in the opera world responded to Mr. Mortier’s appointment with enthusiasm. “Mortier has been one of the visionaries for opera in Europe and by extension around the world,” the president of Opera America, Marc Scorca, said. “That he would bring his vision and his worldwide connections to New York City Opera is hugely exciting.”

The editor of Opera News, F. Paul Driscoll, approved of Mr. Mortier’s decision to stay at the State Theater. “I have always thought,” Mr. Driscoll said, “that publicizing the need for a new theater as widely as was done was a major mistake and cost them audience.”

Mr. Driscoll also said that he hoped that one week a month — the time Mr. Mortier will spend in New York over the next two years as he finishes his contract in Paris — would be sufficient for him to make as deep a study of the company and the city. Mr. Gelb was full-time at the Met for a year before he took over and worked as a consultant for six months before that.

Because the singers at the Met are booked much further in advance than those at the City Opera, Messrs. Gelb and Mortier will each present the first season he has fully designed in 2009-2010. “That both leaders will begin to demonstrate their artistic visions in the same season is going to be tremendously exciting and informative and inspiring to the local opera community, and the national and the international opera community,” Mr. Scorca said.

Mr. Gelb, who has proved himself very savvy in attracting media attention to the Met, said that sharing the spotlight with the company across the Plaza could end up being a plus for both. “Gérard, who is somebody I’ve known for many years, is somebody who attracts attention wherever he goes,” Mr. Gelb said. “And the more attention opera gets in New York, the better it is for the Met and for the art form.”