The Kirov Opera continues its annual residency at the Kennedy Center with Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff. This last opera by the exceptional Italian composer is a mixture of slapstick comedy -- Arrigo Boito based the libretto on portions of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and the Henry IV plays -- and an exquisite score of Mendelssohnian delicacy and carefully crafted drama. As the twilight work of a revered composer, it holds a special place in the hearts of opera enthusiasts, the present reviewer included. Imagine the disappointment, on Wednesday night, of seeing the Kirov Opera transform Falstaff into a work of acidic black comedy, a commentary on the divide between a wealthy gangster elite and the freakish, marginalized dregs of society.

The transformation hinges on making us feel pity for Falstaff's troubles rather than simply laughing at him as the vain, deluded overweight buffoon that he is made out to be in the libretto. We are not meant to sympathize with Ford, the jealous husband who gets mixed up in the intrigue set by the Wives to humiliate Falstaff for pursuing them sexually. However, Verdi did intend us to see the Wives as the heroic party, a fact that plays at odds with what must happen for the audience to feel bad for poor Falstaff: the Wives must be made unjustifiably cruel. Director Kirill Serebrennikov has done this by making Ford and the Wives into the nouveau riche Moscow millionaires, thinly veiled in the recent past, perhaps the 1950s.

In Act I, scene 2, we see Meg and Alice, with daughter Nanetta and friend Quickly, in an upscale ladies' hair salon, and in Act II, scene 2, in a designer boutique with racks of clothing. Alice's husband, Ford, is a mafioso, driving around in a vintage car (a Ford, of course) with his gang of machine gun-toting ruffians. The chorus of fairies in the Windsor Park forest scene is a freak show of sexual deviants (this production is not recommended for children, unless you want to have to explain what a leather daddy is). Of course, the film clip projected on the drive-in screen is the end of the 1932 horror cult film Freaks.

Some of this has at least a tangential relationship to the libretto. Yes, Verdi sets off the female characters from the male ones in a musical battle of the sexes, by having them sing in different metric patterns when they are on stage together. But how exactly does that lead Serebrennikov to have Ford's henchman violently kill — by strangulation, stabbing with a switchblade, and even pulling out a chainsaw — a chorus of male dancers costumed as women with white skirts and steely masks? Worse, all of that extraneous action, bathed in blood-red light, distracted from a fine performance of Ford's jealousy aria by the strongest singer of the evening, Vasily Gerello.

One might be able to suffer misguided Regietheater if the musical performances were sublime. Sadly, this was an exciting but ultimately inadequate evening, musically. Edem Umerov, who appeared in a last-minute cast change instead of the scheduled Viktor Chernomortsev, was a tame Falstaff, with none of the vocal bluster that really can make an audience love him, foibles and all. Worse, he often looked desperately confused, missing some crucial lines, and was often too busy concentrating on his next entrance to give any characterization to the role. When Serebrennikov has Falstaff keel over from a heart attack at the conclusion, also not in the libretto, one is glad to see him go.

The opera's most magical music, the mysterious recurring duet between Nanetta (Olga Trifonova) and Fenton (Andrey Ilyushnikov, also suddenly replacing the scheduled Daniil Shtoda), was spoiled by underpowered singing and the annoying gestures ("Call me, OK?") added by the director. Tatiana Pavlovskaya's Alice was stronger than Elena Sommer's Meg, and both were surpassed by the dusky-voiced Anna Kiknadze as Quickly. Some of the singers' imprecision can be blamed partially on the harried pacing set by conductor Valery Gergiev. The ensemble scenes sparkle with fast notes even at a less driven tempo. Gergiev's work at the podium was perhaps intended to amp up the musical frenzy of the score, to match the manic display of human baseness on stage. In the finale, the words of the opera's final fugue subject, "Tutto nel mondo è burla" (The whole world is a joke), descend on a sign flashing with bright lights, obviously derived from a Coca-Cola ad. It is an appropriate ending for this production, the glare of which ultimately detracts from Verdi's great opera.

Remaining performances of Falstaff are set for Friday and Saturday (February 2 and 3, 7:30 p.m.). Prices, ranging from $69 to $195, are on the expensive side for what you will get.

Photos: Vasily Gerello as Ford in Falstaff, Kirov Opera. Windsor Park drive-in, Falstaff, Mariinsky Theater, 2006. Both photos by Natasha Razina