Rinaldo review: Juvenile japes and kinkiness in light-hearted but sharp Glyndebourne revival

In Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme Liberata, on which Handel’s opera Rinaldo is based, the story of the attempted seduction of the hero by the enchantress Armida is told against the background of the first Crusade, in which bellicose Christian knights struggle to oust the Saracens from Jerusalem.

In Robert Carsen’s light-hearted but sharp production, revived at Glyndebourne by Bruno Ravella, Rinaldo’s romantic exploits and the Crusades themselves all take place in the imagination of a bullied schoolboy, the desire for revenge morphing all too easily into a military conflict where the unquestioned moral worth of the end justifies all.

The school bike sheds serve for the beautiful grove in which Rinaldo visits his sweetheart, Almirena, the bikes becoming horses. The punitive sorceress Armida is a PVC-clad reincarnation of the headmistress, still wielding a cane, chastising her troupe of hoydens, who are dressed in miniskirts, kinky boots and school ties (and upstaging the unfortunate harpsichordist in his virtuoso solo).

The decisive battle is one of those incomprehensible games that could only have been conceived on the playing fields of a British public school.

The humour is often juvenile, but that’s what adolescents are, with all their romantic infatuations and world-dominating fantasies. There are genuine laughs to be had too, but also many touching moments as we empathise with the vulnerabilities of the human condition.

Jakub Józef Orlinski brings a suitably potent countertenor and fearless delivery to the title role, while Giulia Semenzato is affecting as his lover, Almirena. Kristina Mkhitaryan is a formidable Armida. Maxim Emelyanychev is the superbly resourceful and stylish conductor.

Until Aug 25 (01273 815000, glyndebourne.com)