I’ve just finished reading Roger Scruton’s Wagner’s Parsifal. It was Scruton’s last book, about Wagner’s last work, and though I struggled to get through his Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left, I thought I’d try Parsifal anyway.

To be clear: I’m ignorant of opera. I once saw Carmen in Warsaw, but that and What’s Opera, Doc? are my forays into that intimidating, expensive art form.