Ponchielli's La Gioconda, a Venetian melodrama demanding six major voices, returns to Covent Garden's Main Stage in Oliver Mears's production.
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, a Venetian melodrama of poison, faith and revenge, returns to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Thursday 29 April to Tuesday 18 May 2027.
It opened at La Scala in 1876. Arrigo Boito wrote the libretto under an anagram of his own name, and went on to write the librettos of Otello and Falstaff for Verdi.
The opera comes from a Victor Hugo play and is set in seventeenth-century Venice. A street singer loves a nobleman who loves someone else, her blind mother is accused of witchcraft, and a spy for the Inquisition works against them.
A poison, a dagger and a suicide settle the plot. The score also contains the Dance of the Hours.
It is the last grand opera in the Italian tradition and needs six major voices, which is why houses stage it rarely.
Oliver Mears directs his production on the Main Stage, his second production of the spring alongside his own Tosca. The run overlaps with Swan Lake on the same stage.