If speed of execution is a key requirement, beyond C++ and some good programmers, your main options are Java and C#.
I use Java with Struts on Tomcat for a couple of projects and it's served me well.
I use Java with Struts on Tomcat for a couple of projects and it's served me well.
In any case, even with a slow scripting language like Ruby, if the speed of the language is a concern, perhaps that part of the application should just be farmed out to a library in C (or a separate process in whatever language). Need more info, though.