Amilcare Ponchielli stands in the same relation to Verdi as Webster does to Shakespeare - a younger, lesser contemporary, albeit a remarkable artist in his own right, with a darker vision of humanity. La Gioconda, first performed in 1876, is his best-known work, and has much in common with Jacobean drama.

The setting is Venice, its beauty masking a society rotten to its core. The titular heroine, one of the most complex figures in all opera, is a street singer, a woman whose emotional violence is offset by heights of moral awareness that allow her insights into the corruption around her, but is unable to prevent her own destruction. Her nemesis, Barnaba, is a sadistic malcontent, driven, like Iago, by an almost unmotivated sense of evil. The score, which blends lyricism with a bleak, nervous energy, has occasional longueurs, though it can also make for powerful music theatre, if done properly.

The Royal Opera has elected to open its new season with two performances in concert, a format that perhaps blunts its dramatic impact. Gioconda is played by Violetta Urmana, thrillingly secure in her negotiation of the immense spans of Ponchielli's vocal writing, altogether less successful when it comes to subtlety of characterisation. She shies away from the outer limits of emotional violence and doesn't always ideally capture the contrasting moments of tenderness and awareness.

The rest of the cast is uneven. Alexandru Agache's Barnaba is the embodiment of suave malignancy and Jill Grove is harrowingly intense as Gioconda's blind mother Cieca. Tenor Marcello Giordani, however, is occasionally effortful as Gioconda's duplicitous lover Enzo, while Mariana Pentcheva and Eric Halfvarson as Laura and Alvise belt out their music at graceless full-throttle throughout. Antonio Pappano's conducting is all fiery aggression, capturing the work's urgent bitterness, though sometimes failing to explore its lyrical depths.