La Juive, Halévy's massive, if flawed, examination of the nature and effects of anti-semitism, occupies an awkward place in the history of western culture. First performed in 1835, it was one of the most popular of operas until the years immediately after the first world war, when it slid from view, a victim, in part, of the very prejudice that it describes. Nowadays we tend to consider it in terms of its influence. Mahler is unthinkable without it. So is Proust, who wove ceaseless references to it into A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Despite a handful of recent revivals, however, the score remains saddled with a reputation for unwieldy unevenness, a criticism that the Royal Opera's concert performance fails to refute.

It cries out for a staging, for starters. It was written for the Paris Opéra, a high-tech theatre that encouraged composers to understate certain scenes in which mind-boggling special effects were intended to carry the drama. Huge swathes of it consequently don't stand alone as music and need some visual complement. There are, however, sections of indisputable genius. Halévy is strong in his understanding of how a crowd can become a mob in an instant, and of how ideological standpoints can harden into inflexibilities that make reconciliation impossible. Some of the love scenes have a dangerous eroticism, too.

It also requires a more evenly balanced cast than the Royal Opera has mustered. The great performances come from Marina Poplavskaya, who scales tragic heights of great complexity as Rachel, and Dario Schmunck, all vapid elegance and suitably unreliable charm as Léopold. Dennis O'Neill's Eléazar is a bit too genteel for a man pushed to near insanity by the prejudices of others. As ditzy Eudoxie, meanwhile, Nicole Cabell slides round too much of the coloratura. The opera is furiously conducted by Daniel Oren, and the choral singing is electrifying.

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