honestly i do appreciate the fact that my introduction to opera was largely in an academic setting bc a lot of opera i think (esp really old ones like baroque, but also some of the wacky stuff from the late 19th/early 20th century) are built upon certain conventions/assumptions about the audience and their taste/knowledge in music that are so different from modern ones that if i was to go into them completely blind (without like. a professor explaining some context here or there) i would probably not have as good a time with it