Michael MacLeod wishes you would stop watching TV, get off your butt (as he puts it), and go see the opera. The blunt, engaging artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera is passionate about the art form he considers the most immersive and emotionally satisfying of all. Plus, he's facing a tough year.

The internationally known opera company near Cooperstown is waiting out the same financial drought parching arts organizations across the country. Glimmerglass has seen its $5 million endowment drop 20 percent in the last year. But even with fiscal woes, a recession-triggered drop in ticket sales, and a tenuous relationship with its partner New York City Opera, Glimmerglass's 2009 season offers a pretty amazing variety of productions spanning four centuries.

The lightest one, "La Cenerentola," showcases madcap comedy and buoyant music in Gioachino Rossini's telling of the Cinderella story. Director Kevin Newbury decided to plop the 1817 version of the tale into 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, thus deepening the contrast between the rich and the poor. Don Magnifico, the father of Cinderella (called "Angelina" in the opera) is down on his luck and desperate to marry off his two luscious daughters, Clorinda and Tisbe. They preen and prattle while their virtuous sister Angelina cooks and irons. It's the usual fairy tale minus the magic. Angelina must save herself.

A year ago, Newbury imagined two elaborate sets for this production, with big, curved walls and a sweeping staircase. When the recession hit, he asked set designer Cameron Anderson to scrap the staircase idea and spend less money. The result is effective: two scenes contrast a dismal scullery and an opulent library. The haves and the have-nots.

Singer Eduardo Chama channels wild man Jack Black as the money-grubbing Don Magnifico. He bounces, poses, and puffs, singing full voice with the perfect degree of ridiculous pomposity. John Tessier radiates elegance as the good-hearted prince, Don Ramiro, and soprano Julie Boulianne offers a milky, flexible tone as Angelina. Her disguise at the ball (designed by Jessica Jahn) is a touch of genius. The men's chorus is excellent, and the goofy physical comedy during group numbers is eye-popping, if not a little distracting.

The closest thing to a complaint I overheard during intermission was that Rossini's Cinderella is just unbelievably saintly. In the end, she forgives and forgets, all hugs and smiles. These days she'd ditch her hateful family, marry the uber-yummy prince, and hire a good therapist to help her move on.

From the first menacing notes of "The Consul" by Gian Carlo Menotti, you know you're in for a wholly different experience. The Italian-American composer was inspired to write the opera by a newspaper article he read about an immigrant woman who hanged herself on Ellis Island after being denied entry to the United States.

Pounding timpani and anxious brass licks signal tension in director Sam Helfrich's production, set in what might be a 1950's airport terminal or stark, run-down mall. With blueish, K-Mart lighting, set designer Andrew Lieberman create a generic, almost sterile environment for the story of John Sorel and his sorry fate. Sorel gets hurt while leaving a secret meeting of freedom fighters in an unknown police state. Agents track him home and menace his wife, mother, and sick baby. He goes into hiding while his wife, Magda, applies to the Consulate for the visa that will save his life. If you tap into your worst, nightmarish, helplessly-waiting-at-the-DMV experience, you'll understand "The Consul." It magnifies anxiety.

Melissa Citro brings vocal power and tremendous range to the role of Madga. She's both strident and sad. Soprano Joyce Castle as The Mother pelts and rages, then calms to offer a tender lullaby to the sick baby. (Castle, an Eastman grad, will mark the 40th anniversary of her professional career with a premiere of a new vocal chamber work by William Bolcom with St. Luke's Chamber Players in New York City next year.) Leah Wool plays the Consul's secretary with a clear, precise tone and expressive nuance in a tricky role as the bearer of red tape.

Menotti's opera juxtaposes the language of memos with the world of poetry. The music swells and fades into stillness, evoking the resigned atmosphere of Robert Frost's poem "Home Burial." The dry acoustics in the Alice Busch Theater makes every note crisp.

Novelist Alexandre Dumas created the perfect woman in his 1848 novel "La Dame aux Camelias." She's smart, beautiful, charming, and extremely noble. Except for one thing: she makes her money by making love.

Composer Giuseppe Verdi liked Dumas' novel so much that he decided to write an opera based on the story. Since 1853, "La Traviata" has become one of the most beloved operas in the repertory. Glimmerglass's new production, directed by the legendary Jonathan Miller, sets the story of Violetta Valery against a series of stunning backdrops. They're French Impressionist paintings come to life.

Miller's experience as a film, stage, and television director has made him a lifelong student of the subtleties of human gesture. In lectures, he gently rails against what he calls Jurassic Park opera singers, those who fling out their arms and sing without considering the weirdness of their body language. Nobody talks that way. In Miller's production of "La Traviata," nobody sings that way, either. The action is punctuated with normal, understated gestures such as twirling a lock of hair.

The success of Glimmerglass's "Traviata" is primarily due to soprano Mary Dunleavy as Violetta Valery, the woman of questionable virtue. Her delivery is brilliant and subtle, even rapturous. She shows an astonishing rage of expressions, even when she's lying on her deathbed in the final act. Ryan MacPherson as her true love, Alfredo Germont, sings with surety and ease, and Malcolm MacKenzie as his father, Giorgio Germont, offers red-blooded warmth and a deep, expressive tone.

The season at Glimmerglass ends next week, but Artistic Director Michael MacLeod is already planning for next season, which will include Puccini's sexy "Tosca," Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," "The Tender Land" by Aaron Copland, and the North American premiere of Handel's "Tolomeo." In the meantime, MacLeod urges you to get off the couch and go to the opera. "Life is not a dress rehearsal," he says. "It's the performance."

Glimmerglass Opera

Through August 25

Alice Busch Opera Theater, 7300 State Highway 80, Cooperstown

glimmerglass.org

Brenda Tremblay hosts the morning classical music show on WXXI-FM, Classical 91.5.