MUSIC

Beverly Sills’ successor as general director of the New York City Opera will be conductor Christopher Keene, who once served as the company’s music director. The opera’s board appointed Keene “with great enthusiasm” at a meeting Thursday, according to Martin Oppenheimer, vice chairman of the company’s board of directors. Sills announced in May that she would resign effective Jan. 1 as general director of the company. Keene was music director of the company from 1983 to 1986, when he resigned the post. Since then, he has been head of a performing arts center in Buffalo, N.Y., and head of the Long Island Philharmonic, said Oppenheimer.