LILITH. Music by Deborah Drattell, libretto by David Steven Cohen. Directed by Anne Bogart. With Beth Clayton, Lauren Flanigan, Dana Beth Miller, Marcus DeLoach and Tom Nelis. Danced by the SITI Company. New York City Opera Chorus and Orchestra conducted by George Manahan. Attended at Sunday's opening. New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. Repeated Thursday and Saturday.

NEW AMERICAN OPERAS get staged with such demoralizing infrequency that whenever one makes it to the opening curtain, it can count on an ample fund of good will. On Sunday afternoon, Deborah Drattell's "Lilith" squandered it all in the space of a few lugubrious minutes.

Allegedly about Adam's apocryphal and dangerously lustful first wife, Drattell's new opera, which New York City Opera gave its world premiere, is actually an impenetrable dance pageant featuring a chorus of men in Hasidic garb and a pair of female protagonists who are barely garbed at all.

According to Jewish folklore, Lilith is the original femme fatale, sapping the juice out of sleeping men so as to give birth to a race of demons. The combination of biblical and vampiric themes, plus Drattell's long orchestral interludes, gave director Anne Bogart the opportunity to choreograph her SITI dance company in some cabalistic soft-core. Dancers and singers, clad in modest black, do some lethargic faux-Fosse numbers with chairs: "A Stranger Among Us" meets "Cabaret."

Rarely has a score portended so much and delivered so little. Trombones mutter darkly. Strings shiver in awestruck tremolos. Dark- hallway-at-night chords keep pounding away until they have outlived their ominousness. Eerie vamps resolve into plain old oompahs. Semitic melodies announce their ancestry and then have nothing more to say. The orchestral textures are soupy, and the vocal lines jerk between chant-like monotony and thankless leaps. The mood never deviates from a sacramental fug.

As for the libretto by David Steven Cohen, an excerpt will suffice. Act II ends with a spasm of solemn nonsense that climaxes in a shudder of alliterative drivel: "Dark pleasure," Eve sings. "Sweet river past teeth and tongue, a river of want," her daughter sensibly replies. Then mother and child join together, singing "Wind Water Want. Washing away regret. Wind Water Want."

If anyone at City Opera had any doubts about the merits of this work, it was a well-kept secret: The company gave "Lilith" an enthusiastic and expert maiden run. Beth Clayton, making her debut with the company, slinked memorably through the title role, armed with a cloak of long, brown, shampoo-commercial hair, a fierce and glistening soprano and a shiny nightie.

Lauren Flanigan was Eve, and she gave a performance that was unstinting both in passion and in eccentricities. She staggered through the opera, trying to mimic Lilith's way with men, and eventually appeared to learn some of her dubious skills. The score brought out the worst of Flanigan - the epileptic agonies, the martyred looks, the close-your-eyes-and-swing approach to intonation, the whooping high notes launched into space. What Flanigan does best is give outrageous substance to a character, but not even she could put meat on an utter abstraction. Besides, some manager or close friend should have advised her against singing in a clingy slip.

Even in mourning uniform, Dana Beth Miller managed to stand out as Eve's nameless daughter, and Marcus DeLoach made a good son. Tom Nelis sang the Seer quite nicely, and he got extra points for spending much of the opera standing with the beatific immobility of a mannequin in a sage's beard and prayer shawl.

City Opera continues its tradition of taking admirable gambles and risking the painful flop in exchange for the bold success. This philosophy has led to some important moments in opera. But "Lilith," alas, isn't one of them.