NEW YORK - After 10 performances of "Madame Butterfly" in front of packed houses at the Metropolitan Opera, and having conducted the annual opera of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, Asher Fisch can chalk up 2006 as a record year in New York.

The Israeli conductor was enthusiastically welcomed at "Madame Butterfly." And this month, he conducted 12 well-known opera singers and the Metropolitan Orchestra in a memorial event for Tucker, a Jewish tenor whose career climaxed in the 1940s and 1950s.

"In another two years," says Fisch, "I will conduct [Mozart's] 'Magic Flute' at the Met, and we are already discussing the programs for 2009 and 2010."

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Fisch, 48, who is also the musical director of the New Israeli Opera, is due to appear with the Chicago Opera House in Johann Strauss' "The Bat" in December and January. In January and February, he is scheduled to conduct Verdi's "Falstaff" in Vienna, and next summer he is scheduled to go to Seattle, Washington, for "The Flying Dutchman."

This year, Fisch conducted a concert series with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and traveled to Australia to record Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" with the South Australia Opera.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation gala was attended by the who's who of the New York opera scene.

"The challenge of such an event," says Fisch, "is greater than conducting an opera. You are conducting a superb orchestra and a large choir. You work with 12 different singers, each of whom has his own style and temperament, and each of whom sings a different kind of music. Your job as the conductor, who is on stage the whole time, is to create a homogeneous program out of all these."

Fisch lives in New York. He comes to Israel twice a year for three-month stays, during which he conducts two productions.

Can you compare what you do at the Met to your work with the Israeli Opera?

"Not at all. Here [in New York] the budget is $520 million. The New Israeli Opera has a budget of NIS 70 million. One opera [production] in New York has a budget of a few million dollars. In New York there is a performance every evening, from the end of September until early May, and two performances on Saturdays. It is a totally different world.

"Considering the conditions and the low budget, however, what is being done in Israel is a tremendous accomplishment. Opera in Israel still has to contend with a few significant challenges. We have the problem of developing singers; there is no teaching infrastructure in Israel."

In New York, Fisch chose to live in Harlem. He explains that here he found a house at a reasonable price, with a veranda, a parking spot and room for a grand piano - no small feat in New York.

Since Fisch began working at the Met, the opera house has undergone some changes. Director Joseph Volpe left this past summer and was replaced by Peter Gelb.

"Volpe represented a very conservative approach," recalls Fisch. "He liked to mount very popular works in order to attract an audience. Over the years, however, ticket sales began to decline.

"His approach is understandable. Opera houses in Europe mount modern productions, but there the opera has government support. Here the money comes from private donors, and you have to do what they like. The Americans justified [their preference for] the conservative style and called what is happening in Europe 'Euro trash.'

"Gelb's goal is to mount modern productions in order to attract young people. Now there are a lot of expectations, but some people fear we will lose our conservative audiences before we manage to bring in enough young people. One thing is certain - this attempt will cost a lot of money.

"In Israel we learned that the audience does not shy away from new performances, if they are presented properly. It is no exaggeration to say the Americans are 20 years behind the Europeans, but they will catch up."