Thank you so much! We (OH and I) are even more fired up for our trip - being able to read the German fluently. As for FIL, we've got some translation work to do in the meantime!!! Incidentally it seems from DeutscheOper's website that they've got the running time down to 3 hours plus an interval .......... which is rather a relief!! I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for all the Ring marathons!!!