Reddit reviews Ticket to the Opera: Discovering and Exploring 100 Famous Works, History, Lore, and Singers, with Recommended Recordings

A book I highly recommend for beginners is Ticket To The Opera. Mr. Goulding is himself not an expert and he makes that clear up front. But far from disqualifying him, his enthusiasm shines through on every page and that is what makes this 720-page book, despite it's depth and length, lively and informative reading. Another really neat thing about this book is that he's a former journalist who fell in love with opera late in life, so it's almost like your situation (perhaps) and definitely mine, since I also discovered opera late in life. Maybe a better way to say that is that I finally found time to sit through 3-hour Wagnerian works and enjoy them! Another neat thing is that while Goulding does give great summaries of the "greatest hits" you might expect, his extensive dive into the less heard but still outstanding operas, including many 20th century works, make his book far from simplistic.