This performance of Monteverdi's great study of the power of sex and the sexiness of power is derived from a production of the work at the Thétre des Champs-Elysées, in Paris. David McVicar's staging - a cool, if sleazy modern-dress affair - was not, by all accounts, to everyone's taste, so we were perhaps better off with this austere, rather clever semi-staging, which placed René Jacobs and his Concerto Vocale in the centre of the platform with the singers moving around them.

Even so, the evening aroused mixed feelings. The singers cast as Nero and Poppea in Paris were apparently unable or unwilling to appear in London and their replacements, Zoryana Kushpler and Veronica Cangemi, seemed, on occasion, ill at ease. Both used scores, while the rest of the cast sang from memory, which fractured the dramatic coherence of the whole. Both have fine voices, though Kushpler's Nero, a spoilt brat rather than a psychopath, was undercharacterised. It's also rather difficult to be sexy when you're stuck behind a music stand staring fixedly at your notes, and the opera's central point - that desire overwhelms both reason and moral integrity - only achieved muted expression. The final duet, for the record, was exceptional in its sensual beauty, which simply left you wishing the rest of their scenes together had had the same crotch-tingling power.

As a result, the focus of interest fell on fine performances elsewhere. The burgeoning relationship between Ottone and Drusilla, moving towards a partnership based on love and respect, as well as desire, was beautifully played out by Lawrence Zazzo and Carla di Censo. Anne Sofie von Otter was an electrifying Ottavia, her incipient hysteria tangible behind the layers of throttled resentment and hauteur. Jacobs's conducting, meanwhile, though refined, flexible and sensuous, lacked the revelatory force of his finest work.