Haha, I love-hate it too! There are things about it that really bother me, and I can complain about it at length, and yet I still just absolutely adore it.

For me, I listened to the music a lot before really... knowing what it was about, so watching it was interesting? Like, oh, I finally know what's going on. But for me the music and singing are a huge part of it. But yeah actually watching it is... time consuming, haha. And I still haven't seen it in person, just a recording. Someday...

Sorry, I'm just rambling. I'm glad to find someone here who likes these operas too~