“They say you have to be crazy to start an opera company,’’ Judy Lisi quipped over lunch. “But we did it.’’

Crazy or not, Lisi planted the seeds for what would become Opera Tampa, which this week wraps up its 30th season with Giuseppe Verdi’s dramatic tragedy, Macbeth. As founder of the company and former president of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center — now the Straz — Lisi’s gamble from the 1990s paid off.

“The center had a big debt in 1992, and I said to the board, ‘If we resolve the deficit, I’d like to think about starting an opera company,’‘’ said Lisi, who came to Tampa in 1992 after running the Shubert Performing Arts Center in New Haven, Conn. “Everyone on the board said, ‘If you can solve the deficit problem, you can do anything you want.’’’

It took just two years for her team to triage a $6 million shortage and open an opera-size opportunity: a formal plan to support a 400-year-old art form that unites music, drama, poetry, visual arts,and storytelling in a way that has never gone out of fashion. Nearly all the top 50 cities in the United States host a professional opera company, which nurtures their cultural identify and local economy.

Opera Tampa embraced the implausible with a signature of more than 100 productions and recitals over three decades. Such success has defied the odds and continues to do so amid cuts in state arts funding. Just as important, it engages people through an expressive, constantly changing platform, said Dr. Christopher Combie, assistant vice president of accreditation at the University of South Florida and a patron of the arts.

“I believe deeply in the power of live performance to connect people and elevate the community,’’ he said. “Opera embodies form, function and all the rules of good music. Having a company like Opera Tampa signals that we value artistic excellence, creativity and cultural depth as part of everyday life.’’

Bonny Heet and her husband, Martin, who relocated from Italy to Florida, wanted to keep opera in their lives and were immediately impressed with Opera Tampa’s offerings, both on and off stage: “When we were new here, they provided us with a sense of community. It’s led to lifelong friendships with amazing people of differing backgrounds and interests.’’

Following its inaugural season in 1996, the company presented three grand-scale operas in their original languages, with English translations projected above the stage. Augmenting these productions were recitals featuring internationally acclaimed singers such as Jessye Norman, Kiri Te Kanawa, Andrea Bocelli, Kathleen Battle and Jose Carreras. Opera was gaining momentum here, and major artists wanted to be part of the excitement.

But any excitement needs to include younger people, who traditionally aren’t part of the patronage. So, the company developed a strategy: Bring in Broadway musicals with operatic narratives, such as Rent and Miss Saigon, which are based on two of Puccini’s most successful works, La Boheme and Madama Butterfly, respectively. By bridging the gap between popular entertainment and an older art form, the Straz box office lit up.

“We put operas and musicals together as a package in the same season,’’ Lisi said about the plan. “The hope was to introduce opera to new audiences, and it worked. More and more young people started coming to our performances.’’

Of course, opera takes money and shortcuts are noticed. A typical Opera Tampa production can top $500,000, with less than 40% covered by ticket sales. That’s why the Straz, with its $55 million operating budget, subsidizes its non-profit resident company by allowing it to operate within existing systems rather than apart from them. Most opera companies have separate administration and marketing departments, but Tampa’s troupe uses what is already in place, so funds go directly to the productions themselves.

Today, this financial flexibility allows Opera Tampa to take risks, be more adventurous and tackle contemporary issues. The current season, for instance, has been anything but predictable with the world premiere of Love v. Death, a macabre double bill by St. Petersburgcomposer Tom Sivak. Up next was a 2016 opera based on Stephen King’s novel The Shining, followed by a 20th-century classic in Benjamin Britten’s gothic The Turn of the Screw, adapted from the Henry James noveland remade in the 2001 film The Others. To satisfy traditional cravings, the company offered Mozart’s fairytale The Magic Flute and concludes this coming weekend with its first-ever staging of Macbeth, Shakespeare’s play about a ruthless and corrupt quest for power that mirrors modern politics.

Next season tips a hat to convention with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s Tosca. Repeating such beloved works — along with the new — builds on what is becoming a tradition and source of pride, said Greg Holland, who in 2022 succeeded Lisi as CEO and president of the Straz.

“What’s made Opera Tampa possible over the last 30 years is simple: persistence, belief and a community that chose to embrace it,’’ he said. “Today, it’s not just established; it’s essential. The company has helped shape a more complete and confident cultural identity for Tampa Bay and reflects a community that’s willing to invest in great art and see it thrive.’’

Kurt Loft is a journalist and music critic who has written for various newspapers, magazines and arts groups for more than 40 years. A member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he lives in St. Petersburg.