In 1956 the New York City Opera suffered a financially disastrous season that led to the resignation of the distinguished Erich Leinsdorf as director and chief conductor. That was perhaps the lowest point in the company's history. The board of directors pored over dozens of nominations for Leinsdorf's replacement before they decided on the one person who had the confidence of everybody -- Julius Rudel.

Twenty-two seasons later, he is still firmly in command, and the once struggling City Opera has risen to world prominence. Although its $8 million annual budget is much smaller than that of the Metropolitan Opera and the major houses of Europe, Rudel has been able to get many singers who are unequaled anywhere, and has staged far more new works by living composers than has Lincoln Center's "other" opera house.

Apart from its musical significance, the City Opera has become a sort of living symbol for the arts in America, flourishing in the face of financial hardships, and somehow emerging more creative, more artistically exciting because of those hardships. Why else would people like Beverly Sills and Sherrill Milnes perform at City for a top fee of $1,000, or even for free, when they can get $10,000 for a night's work elsewhere?

"We build loyalties," explains Rudel in his delicate Germanic-British accent, the morning after conducting a benefit performance of _The Merry Widow_. "A lot of our singers go on to other companies, but they come back. They don't forget us. The New York City Opera has produced more great singers than probably any other company in the world."

It is early, even for this man who begins his work as soon as he get up and keeps going till late at night with his multiple roles as music director, chief conductor, administrator, impresario and goodwill amba.s.sador. Clad in his colorful dressing gown, his thick silver hair shining, he seems an entirely different person from the magnetic orchestral leader whose presence on the podium generally guarantees a full house. At his expansive Central Park West apartment, he is low-key and to the point, and fiercely proud of the City Opera's achievements.

"We try to look at every opera we do with fresh eyes, as if it had never been done before. We try to reexamine everything about the opera.

Sometimes the tradition attached to a work differs from what the composer and librettist intended. ... Tradition was defined by a famous conductor long ago as 'the last bad performance.' For example, in _Turandot_ there's a character who had been traditionally [portrayed] as blind. But it makes no sense in the story for him to be blind, so we don't play him that way. We're restoring the cla.s.sics, not changing them."

He jumps up to answer the telephone just as his wife Rita enters the room.

A slender, dark-haired woman, she is a doctor of neuropsychology at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and a devoted opera fan. "I'm Mrs. Rudel in the morning," she explains, smiling. She met Julius when they were both at music school. Today, while keeping a close friendship with many of the City Opera's singers, she maintains her own ident.i.ty to the extent that her medical colleagues sometimes tell her, "I saw you at the opera last night," without realizing that her husband was the conductor.

The Rudels have lived on the West Side ever since they were married 36 years ago. "My wife sometimes says we live within mugging distance of Lincoln Center," says Rudel, his eyes twinkling with impish amus.e.m.e.nt.

"But really, we're confirmed Westsiders. I don't think I ever use any form of transportation from here to the theatre, and I don't eat out much, because my wife is a marvelous cook. Time being so of the essence, we prefer to stay at home."

The City Opera's spring season continues until April 30. Rudel recommends three shows in particular: _The Saint of Bleecker Street_, _The Turn of the Screw_, and _The Marriage of Figaro_, which he is conducting. "I envy all the Westsiders who have the opportunity to come to us," he concludes. "Our seats in the upper reaches of the State Theatre are the best theatrical bargains in the world."

EASTSIDER DR. LEE SALK America's foremost child psychologist

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At one time, the name Salk was synonymous with one thing only -- the revolutionary polio vaccine discovered by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1953. In the 1970s, however, another national figure of the same name has emerged -- Dr. Lee Salk, Jonas' younger brother, who is probably the most highly respected and best-known child psychologist in America today.

The most successful of his five books, _What Every Child Would Like His Parents to Know_ (1972), has been translated into 16 languages, while his most recent work, t.i.tled simply _Dear Dr. Salk_, was published in March by Harper & Row.

A soft-spoken, highly energetic man who bears a close physical resemblance to comedian Phil Silvers, Dr. Salk recently invited me to share his thoughts in an interview at his Upper East Side apartment.

"What I try to do as a psychologist," he said, sitting in a large, circular chair in his s.p.a.cious library, "is to use all the media to present what I consider useful psychological information that has been distilled for the consumer -- to take the jargon out of it, and the ambiguity, so people can use it to deal effectively with their problems. While most people see me as a child psychologist, I'm really an adult psychologist who has focused on some of the most difficult issues that affect all people. ... In my initial years of practice, it became clear to me that most of the problems originated in childhood, and I felt that perhaps the front line of mental health is really in those early, critical years."

Since 1972, he has been writing a column t.i.tled "You and Your Family"

for _McCall's_ magazine, which has a readership of 16 million.

"I frequently deal with family concerns, including problems that have to do with older people," he explained. "I choose a different topic each month. Frequently the topic revolves around a number of letters that come in. The June issue, for example, has an unusually large column because we're dealing with s.e.xuality. We get hundreds and hundreds of letters, so I can't answer them personally, but I do read them all. When I'm giving a speech across the country, I like to use airplane time to catch up on my mail."

As a television personality, he appears at least twice a week on NBC's _News Center 4_. His off-the-cuff manner is no deception: Salk does each of his broadcasts live, without a script, speaking spontaneously on a current issue.

His latest book, _Dear Dr. Salk_, answers questions ranging from the s.p.a.cing of children to problems specific to teenagers. When asked how his approach compares to that of Ann Landers or Dear Abby, Salk replies: "I must say that they fall far short of what I'm trying to do. These people are not professional psychologists. They tend to sensationalize -- to appeal to the voyeuristic tendencies people have. I'm not saying they don't help people, but they don't always provide people with knowledge.

"A good deal of what I say is not direct advice. In answering a question, I try to provide knowledge about the problem, which the person can use, to answer his or her own question. I really feel I shouldn't give people a series of do's and don'ts"

His knowledge is based on a 25-year career as a professional clinical psychologist. Following his graduation from the doctoral program at the University of Michigan, Salk spent three years teaching at McGill University in Montreal, then returned to Manhattan, where he grew up.

He still maintains a private practice, and is on the staff at Cornell University Medical School, the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic and the Lenox Hill Hospital.

Dr. Salk won the custody of his two children, Pia and Eric, in 1975 after a precedent-setting divorce trial in which it was ruled that he was "the parent that can best nurture their complex needs and social development."

A problem of many parents, he said, is not that they spend too little time with their children, but that "it's basically useless time, because they're not actively involved with the child." Salk himself makes a point of having breakfast and dinner with Pia and Eric virtually every day, and includes them in his social life whenever possible. "Their friends are frequently my dinner guests." Each summer he spends three months with them at an island retreat in Maine, while commuting to New York for his professional commitments. Dr. Salk enjoys cooking, and also likes to go to restaurants.

Dr. Salk's newest project is a 13-part series for public television, to be aired starting September 29. He will appear each week with three children to discuss such topics as love and attachment, divorce, and "making a family work." The programs, he said, "are geared to family viewing time, so children and their parents can watch together."

EASTSIDER FRANCESCO SCAVULLO Photographer of the world's most beautiful women

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As Richard Stolley, the managing editor of _People_ magazine, is fond of saying, every publication on the newsstand is actually two publications.

One is the inner contents, and the other -- far more important in terms of sales -- is the front cover. A stunning cover can make the difference of tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for a national magazine, and that's why _Cosmopolitan_ has engaged the talents of photographer Francesco Scavullo for virtually every one of its covers for the last 11 years.

He has done alb.u.m covers and posters for Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Judy Collins and many others. Among the publications that rely on his most often for covers are _Vogue_, _Playboy_, _Glamour_, _Harper's Bazaar_, _Redbook_, _Ladies Home Journal_, _People_ and the magazine that started it all -- _Seventeen_ -- which ran its first Scavullo cover in 1948, when he was still a teenager himself.

He never had any formal training in photography, but got plenty of practice during his Manhattan boyhood when he began taking pictures of his sisters and their girlfriends. Francesco delighted in applying makeup to their faces, running his hands through their hair, and dressing them in s.e.xy gowns. He quickly made two discoveries -- first, that there's no such thing as an ugly woman, and second, that the photographer and his subject must be personally compatible. Although he charges approximately $3,000 for unsolicited private portraits, Scavullo won't photograph anyone with whom he has bad rapport -- and that includes all people who don't take care of themselves physically or abuse themselves with drugs.

A small, lithe man of 50 who walks with the gracefulness of a dancer and looks considerably younger than his years, Scavullo recently agreed to an interview at the town house on East 63rd Street that serves as both his studio and his home. Dressed in blue jeans, an open-neck white shirt, and Western boots, the chatty, unpretentious photographer sat back on the couch with his arms behind his head and a mischievous smile planted on his face. Asked about the large pills he popped into his mouth from time to time, Scavullo explained that they were vitamins and organic supplements.

"I'm very health-conscious," he said in a gravelly voice with a broad New York accent. "I don't eat meat, and I very seldom have even chicken or fish. I don't drink tea, or coffee, or alcohol -- except for a little wine. ...

A lot of people stop smoking when they start working for me, because I hate it -- all this pollution in the air of New York already. I think smoking is great if you live out in the West, and you sit on top of a mountain like in the Marlboro commercials."

As we were talking in his s.p.a.cious living room, decorated with Scavullo's own paintings, a member of his staff came from the studio below and said, in reference to a woman who was being made up for a shooting session, "She's still not ready, Francesco." Scavullo sighed.

"A seating with a man takes 20 minutes," he remarked, "and with a woman it takes the whole afternoon. Makeup," he added, "is used more intensely in photography than it is in the street. I think women look best without any type of makeup in the daytime. Sunlight has a very bad effect on it. Some of the ladies going by on the street look like they're holding a mask a fraction of an inch away from their face."

He has never developed the habit of stopping beautiful women on the sidewalk, but, said a grinning Scavullo, "if I see someone wildly attractive walking by, I get excited. I might turn around and whistle or something."

Number one on his list of the world's most beautiful women is 14-year old Brooke Shields, who also lives on the Upper East Side. She is one of the 59 models, actresses, and other celebrities featured in his first book, _Scavullo On Beauty_ (1976), which came out in paperback last month from Vintage Press. The volume is filled with life-size shots of women's faces, many of them showing the difference before and after the Scavullo treatment. It is accompanied by frank interviews dealing with clothing, diet, exercise, makeup, and related subjects. _Scavullo On Men_, his second book, was published in 1977. And he has two more in the works -- a picture book on baseball, with text by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the _New York Times_, and a retrospective volume covering his photographs from 1949 to 1980. Both will be out next year.

A resident of the Upper East Side since 1950, he likes to dance until dawn at Studio 54 "whenever I don't have to get up too early the next day."

Asked about his favorite local restaurants, he said he rarely goes to any, but that his entire staff orders lunch almost every day from Greener Pastures, a natural foods restaurant on East 60th Street.

Beauty, he believes, "is an advantage to everything -- man, woman, child, flower, state. I mean, everything. Beauty is the most fabulous thing in the world. I hate ugliness." His advice to amateur photographers: "Get a Polaroid. It is a very flattering camera to use, because it washes everything out." He couldn't resist adding: "If you can't be photographed by Scavullo, have your picture taken with a Polaroid."

WESTSIDER ROGER SESSIONS Composer of the future

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The story of Western music, from the baroque era to the present day, has been written largely by men whose contributions to their art were underappreciated during their own lifetimes. Serious music has a tendency to be ahead of its time, and must wait for the public taste to catch up before it can be accepted.

Such is the case with Roger Sessions. For at least 50 years he has been considered by the American academic establishment to be one of the most gifted and original composers of his generation. But his work has started to gain wide recognition with the general public only since the early 1960s. Today, at 82, he is comfortable in his role as the elder statesman of American concert music. Although relatively few of his works have been recorded -- they place extraordinary demands on both performer and listener -- Sessions continues to write music with practically unabated energy. His most significant official honor came in 1974, when the Pulitzer Prize Committee issued a special citation naming him "one of the most musical composers of the century."

Since his early 20s, Session has led a dual career as a composer and a teacher of music theory. A former professor at both the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University, he has published several books on his musical ideas, and now teaches two days a week at the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center. When I heard that his piano sonatas were going to be performed soon on West 57th Street, I called him to request an interview, and he promptly concurred. We met for lunch at La Crepe on Broadway, and over the meal Sessions revealed himself to be a man of wit, humility, and charm.

Speaking of his piano sonatas, which will be performed at Carnegie Recital Hall in February, March and April, Sessions commented in his slow, precise manner of speech that "the first one was composed in 1930, the second one was composed in '46, and the third one was composed in '65. One sonata will be performed on each program. ... I have heard the young lady play one of them. She's going to come and play for me today.

I'm helping her to prepare them. Because they're difficult and they take a lot of practice. Her name is Miss Rebecca la Becque. I just laid eyes on her for the first time last week."