You can’t really fault Beaumont Glass for playing hooky from gym class when he was a boy. The fact is, he loved opera, and missing class was the only way to catch the train from his home in New Jersey to Penn Station in New York City and then to make a dash for the standing-room-only line in back of the Metropolitan Opera. After all, it’s not as if he didn’t get a workout. Luckily, there was no school on Saturday. That’s the day Glass went to two operas in the city.

“I got the opera bug when I was about 9,” said Glass recently while sitting in a concert hall waiting for a rehearsal of opera music to begin. “I saw ‘Rigoletto’ at the Met and I was hooked. It had a tremendous effect on me. It made my hair stand on end.”

Later, after military service and an education at The United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Glass, who is fluent in German, French and Italian, made a career out of creating operas he hoped would have a tremendous effect on others. For nearly 20 years, he was director of musical studies at the Zurich Opera House in Switzerland and for another 18 years, he was director of opera at the University of Iowa.

Now, Glass is the stage director for a production of “The Magic Flute” to be performed in English on Dec. 14, 15, 21 and 23 by the Maine Grand Opera Company at the Camden Opera House.

“There’s a huge audience in Maine for opera,” said Glass, who, with his wife, Evangeline Noel, moved to Camden a few years ago to be closer to their daughter. “But no one should be afraid that opera is something you have to be educated to enjoy. No. You can enjoy ‘The Magic Flute’ as a fairy tale or as a spiritual tale. It’s the most varied of all Mozart’s operas. It moves from street songs to deeply beautiful spiritual music.”

In addition to 16 scenes and seven stage sets, the opera will feature singers who have performed at the New York City Opera and Boston Lyric Opera, musicians from the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and community and professional singers from Maine.

The essential qualities of all opera – whether in Zurich or in Camden – are the goals that Glass has set for this fledgling company.

“We want to create a believable drama onstage with moving, expressing and singing in a way that involves the audience and draws the audience into the unique world of opera,” said Glass, who has written several books on art songs. “I want to make that possible to the best of our ability with the resources we have.”

The resources at the Camden Opera House are not as copious or as deluxe as ones Glass has known at other venues. But his own roots go back to a very simple approach to the art form – putting together operas with his cousin in their grandmother’s cellar. So he knows how to close the gap with imagination. Back in those earlier days, Glass, who formally studied piano, and his cousin employed marionettes strung from scaffolding over a stage for their productions. Family and friends were invited to operas as elaborate as Wagner’s “Ring” cycle.

One year, during a staging of “Tristan and Isolde,” Glass was lying on his stomach on the scaffolding, which gave way. He fell onto the stage, crushing the set, and an era had come to an end.

But a life’s calling, especially one with a special devotion to children and opera, was cemented. Still, Glass had to complete military service, including two European tours in the late 1940s. Afterward, Glass was stationed in London, where he worked with singers both as an accompanist and coach.

Then, in 1955, while pursuing more education in California, Glass received an invitation to direct “La Traviata” starring Dorothy Kirsten in Seattle. He had no experience directing, but accepted the job and headed for the library, where he spent hours memorizing all the parts of the opera. He had had seen “La Traviata” in Paris and New York but had never directed a full production.

Nevertheless, the show was a success and led to a position as assistant to Lotte Lehmann, the German soprano and lieder singer, at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. From there he worked with companies in New York City, and eventually left for Europe where a similar stroke of good luck landed him a post at the Zurich Opera.

“Usually, when I tried to get something, it didn’t come through,” said Glass, reflecting on the fateful career twists. “Every important thing that happened to me careerwise dropped into my lap.”

Similarly, Glass heard about the Camden opera group through his doctor, who recommended looking into the work of Karen Eisenhower, artistic director of Maine Grand Opera.

“She’s a visionary, an unflappable, energetic person with gumption,” said Glass speaking of Eisenhower, a former opera singer who spearheaded the new company. “But opera is, more or less, happening all over America. Orchestras are having a hard time but opera is doing better. In the last 25 years, opera has become very widespread. When you combine a love of theater with the power of music to heighten the expression, it’s more thrilling.”

Thrilling is a word Eisenhower might use to describe the expert direction she says Glass brings to this production.

“We’re doing ‘The Magic Flute,’ but it’s so far beyond that because of Mr. Glass,” said Eisenhower. “It’s really magic that we are lucky enough to have this renowned opera persona who lives in Camden. It has been a fabulous experience for not only me but for the entire company.”

Eisenhower recounted the day Glass worked with the seven local children he cast for the forest scene in the opera. Instead of directing from a seat in the audience, Glass went onto stage and got down on the floor to teach the children how to crawl like a panther or a lion.

“He has worked with the greats of the opera world, and here he was this 77-year-old man on the floor with the children,” said Eisenhower. “He’s so patient and kind, and that helps with a cast made up of community and professional people. It really lends something to the camaraderie of the cast.”

Glass has a similar take when it comes to working with the cast of an opera. And after having coached the likes of Jose Carreras, he knows what it takes to make good opera.

“I feel like a missionary,” said Glass. “I want people to enjoy opera the way I do. That’s why I came back from Europe: To help people enjoy the beautiful, rich, soul-stirring experience of opera done as musical theater. I’m very happy to be making a contribution here in Maine.”

For information about The Maine Grand Opera Company and performances of “The Magic Flute,” call 230-1200 or 1-866-595-6737.