The story of Susanna in the Apocrypha, of innocence threatened by sexual harassment from the pious Elders, inspired Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto — and Handel, in this rarely performed oratorio, which William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants brought to the Barbican. No semi-staging this time; though Maarten Koningsberger’s resonant and patriarchal Chelsias, and Max Emanuel Cencic’s absentee husband, Joacim, made the most of their exits and entrances. And the chorus grouped and regrouped at moments of heightened drama, lining up at the front for the final chorus praising the vindicated Susanna.

Their singing, and the playing of the instrumental ensemble, was as vividly observant and as stylish as ever, with Christie choreographing every expressive contour of the score. Sophie Karthäuser’s portrayal of the heroine during the slow-burn start was sensitive, intelligent, but no more robustly characterised than the part itself. But then, as the second act opens, and she is approached while bathing in her garden, the heat is turned on.

Beautifully shaped waves of aqueous strings caress her body; her Attendant (Emmanuelle de Negri) has a moment of melancholy pastoral about her lost shepherd lad; and suddenly the First Elder appears, with the violins’ over-the- top figuration and mocking woodwind cries sending up his verbiage. William Burden’s light baritone and Alan Ewing’s dark basso profundo as the Second Elder made a hilarious and dastardly double-act.

As Handel pours out the simile arias, tempest, torrents and whirlwinds of lust were recreated in Christie’s athletic rhythms. A pair of tasselled trumpets entered for the final act: a courtroom scene in which a camp young counter-tenor Daniel (David DQ Lee) hoists the Elders with their own petard.

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