BAYREUTH, Germany — I received more than a few suspicious looks on a recent Friday morning as I waited in line for a performance of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” here.

Maybe it’s because I was the only adult.

The only adult, at least, who wasn’t a chaperone for one of the large group of children eager for the doors to open at a rehearsal stage tucked behind the Bayreuth Festival Theater. One parent, holding the hand of a girl in lederhosen, squinted at my notebook, as if confused not only by my presence but also by why I was taking a show designed for kids so seriously.

But the colorful 75-minute adaptation of “Meistersinger” — presented by the Bayreuth Festival as this year’s edition of Wagner für Kinder, an ongoing series of productions of the composer’s operas made for children — was well worth taking seriously . Ostensibly designed for audiences between the ages of 8 and 12, this would have been an ideal entry point for a newcomer or a fresh perspective for a seasoned fan. (Alas, adults aren’t allowed unless they’re chaperones — or journalists.)

Die-hard Wagnerians may bristle at the thought of the master’s notoriously sprawling operas reduced to roughly an hour — in the case of the mighty “Ring” cycle, 15 hours of the original are delivered in a tight two. But the productions I saw, in Bayreuth and on DVD, were lucid and loyal, taking liberties yet revealing the kinds of universal truths you can only find in fairy tales and fables.