TAMERLANO is one of Handel’s darkest and most psychologically complex operas, posing questions about the abuse of power and whether suicide is ever right. It is also a powerful exploration of the bond between father and daughter.

First staged in London in 1723, it tells of the Tartar Emperor, Tamerlano, who promises to spare his defeated foe, Bajazet, if he can marry his daughter. Asteria is in love with the Greek prince Andronico, and tries to kill Tamerlano. Meanwhile, the emperor’s rejected fiancée, Irene, appears disguised to try and change his mind. With Handel opera, it’s never simple.

In Orpha Phelan’s staging, with the Handel Opera Studio, as part of the London Handel Festival last month, the characters were universal types in the costumes of different eras; so we didn’t have to worry about the backstory. With the overture, Jonathan Brown’s Leone, as Freud, rather strangely displayed a notice that this was Social Experiment 2.0.

The countertenor James Laing’s Tamerlane was Trump, in a bulging suit with red tie and socks, playing golf and stuffing burgers down his throat. One moment he stole a violin from the orchestra and cuts its strings, making you reflect on the dangers of unlimited power in the hands of a buffoon. Benjamin Hulett was a Leonardo da Vinci figure, intellectual and complex, his mellifluous, expressive tenor lending dignity and pathos as he put death before dishonour and planned his suicide. His long death from poison in Act III was the work’s emotional highlight.

Phelan obviously sees courageous Irene as a rather wet Jane Austen type, despite the energy that Kitty Whateley brought to the role. In contrast, her Asteria referenced Artemisia Gentileschi, who bravely took her rapist to court. Nardus Williams is a superb Handelian with a golden voice, and was full of rage and longing by turns. Jake Ingbar showed similar breadth as the Greek prince Andronico, a superhero in Roman armour. Their love duet, with two recorders cooing like doves, melted our hearts.

Madeleine Boyd’s sets made clever use of limited space in Shoreditch Town Hall’s Great Hall, with the audience on three sides, the Academy of Ancient Music under Laurence Cummings behind a main stage, and several small platforms in the stalls, each associated with a different character, allowing rapid movement from scene to scene.

As a happy ending, Tamerlano/Trump, touched by Irene’s pleas and Asteria’s devotion to her father, had a change of heart, pardoned everyone, and married Irene, thus demonstrating that even the blackest of characters is never beyond redemption.