A pogrom unfolds on the streets of Nuremberg. It’s the end of Act II of Barrie Kosky’s new production of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” at the Bayreuth Festival. Elsewhere in the piece, Hans Sachs sings that “all poems and verse are just the interpretation of dreams.” In some sense this production represents Beckmesser’s dream, or nightmare. He is beaten with an enormous portrait of Wagner. His arm is broken, his head is kicked. A papier-mâché head—a hook-nosed, side-locked, yarmulke-wearing antisemitic stereotype—is placed on top of his own head and he is pushed and mocked, stumbling wildly as the crowd attacks him. An enormous, stage-sized balloon of the antisemitic head inflates and consumes the stage. The situation up until then has unfolded like any comic opera’s middle act: the heroine, Eva, has switched costumes with her maid so she can talk to her secret lover; her lover’s rival, Beckmesser, favored by her father but whom she hates, has been trying to serenade her but ended up singing for her maid. He himself has been foiled by another family friend, the town’s shoemaker and poet laureate, Sachs. The maid’s fiancé returns and calls the townspeople into the street, angrily accusing Beckmesser of seducing his bride-to-be. Then, the pogrom. As the crowd vanishes behind the enormous balloon, Beckmesser is left slumped, dejected, and alone. The audience’s last vision as the curtain closes is the Star of David on the balloon’s head.
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