Well, for my purposes, here's what I did:
Luckily, before the user can trigger the behavior to start audio, they have to click a button. I set the volume of the element to 0.0, and have it "play" when they click this button.
After the sound is played silently, I simply set the volume property back to 1.0, and it plays without user intervention just fine.
与恶龙缠斗过久,自身亦成为恶龙;凝视深渊过久,深渊将回以凝视…