Handel’s opera weaves together a love story, abduction and sorcery amid Jerusalem’s siege during the First Crusade.

Director, Robert Carsen chooses to set it at British boarding school where a bullied boy escapes into a madcap fantasy world, becoming its hero. This conceit allows for some wonderful jokes – young lovers enjoying a tryst behind the bike shed; “horseplay” as bicycles become war steeds; battles fought with hockey sticks against lacrosse racquets and a glorious scene where modest maidens in burkas transform into Hell’s Belles a la St Trinians.

Another innovation is having countertenor roles sung by men. All sing with remarkable clarity with top honours going to Iestyn Davies (Rinaldo), closely followed by Tim Mead and Anthony Roth Constanzo. Davies’s lamenting aria, at the end of Act I, is most moving and is matched for poignancy by Christina Landshamer’s in Act II.

Karina Gauvin’s sadistic and frumpish schoolmistress brilliantly transforms into a leather clad dominatrix, controlling fellow teacher (Joshua Hopkins). Both roles are played and sung to perfection.

Conductor Ottavio Dantone not only brings out the orchestra’s best but enhances it with harpsichord accompaniment.