Random cultural exposure...

... is often the best sort. Just listening to a nice free box-set copy of Purcell's King Arthur which I spotted in someone's recycling bin when I was walking the dog yesterday. I often have problems with opera, which strikes me as bloated and overwrought (cf Meatloaf), but the baroque ones are cleaner and simpler and - for me - more effective for that. Keep your eyes on those bins.

PS  I particularly recommend a rollicking folk song that has snuck into Act V:

'We'll toss off our Ale till we canno' stand,

'And Heigh for the Honour of Old England.'

Brits abroad were not hugely different in the late seventeenth century...