About 40 minutes into choreographer John Neumeier’s adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel “Death in Venice,” the repressed Aschenbach (Lloyd Riggins) encounters a mysterious stranger. Dressed in denim and aviator shades, the Wanderer is actually two men dancing as one, joined by the strap of their shared satchel. He/They will infect Aschenbach with a yen for travel, making the first, menacing tug on the laces of his tightly wound character. But rather than seeming like an eerie encounter with demonic forces, watching two guys struggle for a single messenger bag recalls a bad commute on the Q train.

Ensconced at the Hamburg Ballet for more than 30 years, Mr. Neumeier has the company, the money, and the time to indulge himself — and “Death in Venice” shows that indulgence in every pore. Despite spectacular dancers and a score diced together from Bach and Wagner, Mr. Neumeier’s ham-handed modernization (a helpful hint: Never dress your dancers in KISS death-rock masks) first loses wind, and then sinks. It’s a terrible shame too, because Mann’s masterpiece, a spiraling coriolis of illness and desire, should be a natural for the stage.

Clearly, maintaining tone is a major problem for Mr. Neumeier, a massively popular and prolific choreographer who staunchly ignores current fashions in favor of narrative works. Ballet fans have no trouble with the exaggerated mimes in classical dance — Siegfried’s forehead-knocking gestures of despair don’t ruin “Swan Lake,” for example. But when working in a current idiom, with men in suits and musical interruptions from Jethro Tull, showy, literal movements should get the hook. Aschenbach is traveling at sea? He does a modified wave. He lusts after a young boy? He slaps his own hand. The guy was one step away from pretending to be trapped in an invisible box.

Aschenbach — a poet in the book, a choreographer here — leads a life of total devotion to the mind. In his rehearsals, his “concepts” (a wistful Silvia Azzoni and Alexandre Riabko) seem as real to him as his ballet’s star, the gasp-inducing Ivan Urban. Mr. Neumeier’s finest work exists here in the “rehearsal studio,” with trios mirroring one another, and a vast student chorus draining in and out through a wall in the back. Here too Mr. Riggins looked picture-perfect, with his attenuated frame and sweating, ashy face. Wecould easily believe that this Aschenbach needed a vacation.

Of course, there are better places than Venice in the middle of a cholera epidemic. But after seeing young Tadzio (the long-limbed Edvin Revazov) frolicking with his mates on the beach, Aschenbach decides to sit back in his deck chair and let lust have its sway. Sadly, Mr. Neumeier and Herr Aschenbach have a great deal in common — they should both stick to their Appolonian natures. Great galumphing Dionysian elements, such as a misguided orgy in tiger-stripes and the aforementioned KISS masks, knock over any of the piece’s more sensitive ideas. Before long, “Death in Venice” has become a kind of battle between different clichés, whether it’s a gay couple dancing together in (naturally!) pink light or another shirtless chap forcefeeding Aschenbach grapes.

Choreographically, Mr. Neumeier does keep a bit in reserve, so the long awaited love-duet between Tadzio and Aschenbach has some stirring moments. A long drag across the floor, with Mr. Riggins letting his head fall back in ecstasy, captures an older man giving up everything — including dignity — for love. But it is a rare breath of sharpness in Mr. Neumeier’s sticky second act. The few times the piece succeeds, it does so as a celebration of male athleticism and a paean to small bathing suits. But if Mann could see his troubled, mystical feverdream reduced to this soft-porn fantasia, he would have tripped Mr. Neumeier into the handiest canal.

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