La Gioconda

Opera by Amilcare Ponchielli set in seventeenth-century Venice, with Anna Netrebko in the title role and musical direction by Marco Armiliato at the Teatro Real.

It is regarded as the last great opera of Italian Romanticism. Its plot is set in seventeenth-century Venice and revolves around jealousy, betrayal and revenge. Gioconda, a street singer, rejects the love of Barnaba, a spy in the service of the Inquisition who resolves to destroy her. To achieve this, he accuses La Cieca, the protagonist's mother, of witchcraft, and the intervention of Laura, wife of the Inquisitor Alvise, saves her and brings about an unexpected reunion with Enzo, Laura's former lover and Gioconda's fiancé.

From there the story moves towards a tragic ending. Enzo must choose between two loves, while Gioconda becomes trapped in a spiral of sacrifice and pain that leads her to a devastating end.

The cast includes Anna Netrebko in the title role, alongside Luca Salsi, Yusif Eyvazov, Eve-Maude Hubeaux, Lucile Richardot and Simon Lim. Marco Armiliato conducts the music. This show is sung in Italian and has surtitles in Spanish and English. The production brings together vocal demands and dramatic intensity around one of the central heroines of the nineteenth-century repertoire.