Opera is still experiencing a 50-year-old crisis stemming largely from lack of interest by modern composers, Lincoln E. Kirstein '30, former director of the New York City Center, said yesterday.

There are encouraging signs, however, that composers are starting to appreciate "the gloriously exciting possibilities of the theater," he told an audience of about 150 at the annual Theodore Spencer Memorial lecture.

Kirstein deplored the lack of new additions to opera repertory, which, he said, depends on productions which are repeated with frequency. "The list of first performances is big. Hope springs eternal. . . but there are few second performances," he continued.

"Every producer is hungry for a new repertory work. "Carmen" is always an excitement to restudy, but to produce it again is also an admission of poverty," he said.