You probably know by now, because we won't shut up about it, that the Kirov Opera is visiting the Kennedy Center this week. We have already recommended their production of Puccini's Turandot. Last night, we were in the Opera House again, to see the Kirov perform Wagner's Parsifal, which the composer insisted was not an opera but a "stage-consecrating festival drama." (This reminds me that what you are reading is not a post, but a "computer-cleansing ritual article.") A full staging of this opera requires the dedication of five good hours of listening, so the curtain was scheduled for the unusually early time of 6 p.m. and we were not on the way home until a few minutes after 11. This may have kept the event from selling out, but there are apparently enough Wagner nuts in Washington for a respectable crowd not only to show up but also to stay until the bitter (glorious) end.

Once again, star conductor Valery Gergiev gave an inspired reading of a richly orchestrated score -- like Turandot for Puccini, the last that Wagner composed -- in which a complicated system of Leitmotifs (melodic themes that are associated with characters or ideas in the opera) is woven into complex and often dissonant harmonic structures. In Gergiev's orchestra, the woodwinds had a few sloppy moments, the worst being the 672nd time (approximately) that they played the little melodic snippet associated with the Holy Grail in the first act. The brass were generally quite good, especially the lengthy sonic boom that Wagner wrote for them in the middle of the third act and the burnished trumpet scintillating behind the Grundthema, the main theme of Parsifal that opens the opera. The worst sound of the evening came from what are supposed to be bells, which play a crucial role in the scenes in the Hall of the Grail, played last night on what sounded like a $50 synthesizer that belonged in a bad children's music recording rather than in a major opera company's production. What should add to the impression of an incense-filled sanctuary -- for what is more or less Wagner's operatic setting of the words of the Catholic Mass -- instead induced embarrassed laughter.

The singers, after getting off to a somewhat rough start in the first act, warmed up to give generally good performances. Tenor Oleg Balashov (Parsifal for this performance only, with Alexei Steblianko taking the role on February 26) was the most even throughout the night, with a bright sound and noble stage presence as the messianic hero. The part's greatest demands -- sustained, loud, high singing at certain dramatic points -- were, not surprisingly, beyond such a relatively young singer (he graduated from conservatory only in 1999). Gennady Bezzubenkov was a solemn and stentorian Gurnemanz, the senior Grail Knight who guides the holy fool Parsifal, with pronounced power in the lower bass range of the part and less in the forays into the baritone region. Evgeny Nikitin gave a sympathetic performance, on the reserved side, as the wounded King Amfortas, especially in the Act III prayer. In the first act, the weakest moments came from Larissa Gogolevskaya as Kundry, the wild woman and later demonic seductress who tries to corrupt Parsifal but is ultimately saved by him. Her tone was sometimes crude, and the support seemed to fail and strand her voice on isolated high notes from time to time. She improved significantly in the second act, by the time she got to her description of laughing at the suffering of Christ: she negotiated well the incredible leap of almost two octaves (high B off the staff to low C#) on the word "lachen."

The production, directed by Tony Palmer, was psychologically somewhat disturbing, at least to us, although it seemed to match well with Wagner's neuroses (or perhaps your reviewer's). Freud would have loved this myth, a story that is about the rescue of a sacred spear, lost because of lack of sexual control. The wound that afflicts Amfortas and makes him weak, a wound given by his own spear in the hands of the evil Klingsor, could also have a sexual connotation in Freudian analysis, which seemed to be underscored in the sets by Yevgeny Lysyk. The backdrops all featured prominent and suggestive holes, mostly unexplained, beginning with a sphincterlike opening in Act I (shown with the first paragraph of this post) that reminded us of a certain grotesque image (we curse you, damnable Internet, for putting these things permanently in our minds). This opened up to a vast, gaping black hole in the second act, where the Flower Maidens and finally Kundry tempt Parsifal sexually. In the third act, shown above, the hole had become the rose window of a Gothic cathedral. The mind boggles.

Although the story is part Arthurian legend and part Wagner's twisted appropriation of Schopenhauer and Christian mythology, the sets and Nadezhda Pavlova's often bizarre costumes added a specifically Russian tinge. This was true especially in the somewhat Tartar-like costumes for the Grail Knights and the golden setting of the Grail Hall, like the iconostasis in an Orthodox church. The oddest moment of the opera was the appearance of the magician Klingsor, costumed in a vast fur cloak and a gray wig that came from either the Bride of Frankenstein or Bob Marley. Complete with clawed gloves with which he awkwardly wielded Amfortas's spear, he looked like the love-child of Cousin Itt and Wolverine. All of this bizarre imagery contrasted strangely with the music, which at times was transcendent, especially the ethereal sounds of the offstage choruses in the Grail Hall scenes, performed again, as in Turandot, by members of the Maryland Boy Choir, at the conclusion from somewhere in the theater behind us. The Flower Maidens, in pleasing pastel veil-costumes combined with clawed gloves like Klingsor's, were a delight for eyes and ears. Parsifal is not for everyone, but if you are open to the possibility that you might enjoy five hours of music, this opera could change your life.

Remaining performances of the Kirov Opera are scheduled for Thursday and Saturday (Turandot, February 21 and 23, 7:30 p.m.), Friday (Verdi's Requiem Mass, February 22, 8:30 p.m.), and Sunday (Parsifal, February 24, 3 p.m.). If you are looking for a cheaper ticket, we have two suggestions. For students, there are (or possibly were) some $10 student tickets for Thursday's Turandot (February 21, 7:30 p.m.). You need to go to the Kennedy Center box office with your valid student ID and ask for the "ATTEND DISCOUNT" (mention promotion code 12488). You can buy up to two tickets, but you will need your guest's student ID to buy him or her a ticket. If you are past your student days, we understand that the only regular tickets remaining are pretty expensive. If you really want to go, we advise you to try TICKETplace, in the Old Post Office Pavilion, where you can often buy tickets to Kennedy Center events for reduced prices. Check on the day of the performance.