BECAUSE he joined the fledgling Glimmerglass Opera, in Cooperstown, New York, in 1979 and transformed it into the most successful small opera company in the country, BECAUSE he spearheaded the construction of Glimmerglass's intimate and glorious-sounding permanent home, the 900-seat Alice Busch Opera Theater. BECAUSE he almost single-handedly revived the Stateside taste for the Baroque operas of Handel and Monteverdi, and thereby created a demand for dozens of new countertenors to sing them from David Daniels to Bejun Mehta. BECAUSE in 1997 he took over a troubled New York City Opera, which had lost its previous director to AIDS, and dramatically revitalized the company, while at the same time turning Glimmerglass into the perfect farm system for new N.Y.C.O. productions, BECAUSE his adventurous repertories at both houses show a commitment to American operas, from new works such as Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men to neglected classics such as Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Elektra. BECAUSE he has championed singers with world-class voices who look like the romantic characters they portray, among them baritone Dwayne Croft and sopranos Lorraine Hunt and Christine Goerke. BECAUSE, as its next-door neighbor the Met docs the canon, N.Y.C.O. does everything else, with tickets that cost about half as much, BECAUSE he ignored the purists and addressed the New York State Theater's poor acoustics by installing an "electronic sound-enhancement system." BECAUSE it sounds better now. BECAUSE, as a result of his efforts to reach younger audiences, 11 percent of N.Y.C.O.'s attendees are students with discount tickets, BECAUSE no one has worked harder or done more to dispel the myths that opera is inaccessible, elitist, or unfun.