Ah, I guess I had forgotten/not known/etc. that you were not a Wagnerianer. Yeah, it's a marvelous and wonderous beast (and there's a decent amount of quality writing about it), and it's one of the very few long operas that really has no flab in it. I also find it probably the easiest to talk about without getting musically nitty-gritty. I'd say that was a solid introduction to the opera as well, no really crazy directorial fiats involved.