“Later this year, the Bayreuth Festival foundation is to decide who will follow the ailing 87-year-old Wolfgang Wagner, grandson of the composer, as festival director. His youngest daughter, Katharina, 29, has thrown her hat into the ring, and this ‘Meistersinger’ was widely seen as an audition for the job. No staging could ever have lived up to such expectations. Hers certainly didn’t. Bayreuth needs change, and in its convoluted way, this production was a plea for that.”