If there is a spectrum for philosophy in operas, Handel's Teseo is at the chick-lit end. Given its plot - guardian in love with ward eventually gives her up to handsome hero - it is like Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe, but without the political satire.

Nonetheless, in his final season as artistic director of Göttingen's International Handel Festspiele, Nicholas McGegan and stage director Catherine Turocy have provided a stylish and entertaining production which brought the normally reticent first night audience to its feet.

It helps to have a quality cast. Indubitably, the stars are the rivals for Teseo - Amy Freston's utterly charming Agilea and Dominque Labelle's Medea.

Being bad energises this Medea; she revels in her wickedness. When she and Egeo (Drew Minter) have such fun together and understand each other so well, why does she even bother with such a milksop as Teseo (Susanne Rydén). Hero he may be, and a soprano role at that, but like so many operatic tenors, were he any wetter, he would be a bog. So why the revenge, if not for the sheer joy of scaring people? Which, aided by imps terrorising Agilea with snakes, she does as she stalks around cracking a whip.

There is beautiful playing from the FestspielOrchester Göttingen. Agilea's Act I aria "M'adora l'Idol' mio" turns into a duet with the oboe, to whom she blows a well-deserved kiss at the end. Throughout, she sings with a delicacy and phrasing which captures the fluctuations in emotion - despair, anguish, hope, desire, excitement, joy.

Robin Blaze is a lighthearted Arcane, well matched by Céline Ricci as his beloved Clizia. Ricci is playful and teasing in her duets with Blaze, remarkably self-possessed when Agilea interrupts them mid-snog. Arcane's aria "Ah cruda Gelosia" is delightfully sung, with a gentle fervour which deserves to melt any lover's heart.

Drew Minter is obviously channelling someone (whom your reviewer has failed to identify) and enjoying himself hugely in the process. At the start of his big scene with Agilea, he is handed a sheet of paper with drawings of hands in various positions; these he proceeds to use in his appeal to Agilea to be his queen.

Which brings us to the staging. While very baroque in costume and set, complete with baroque dance from the New York Baroque Dance Company, it winks knowingly at the audience. The screen for super-titles is used for showing the conductor still finishing his crossword when he is due in the pit, the girls rushing round from make-up on to the stage for the first act, Dominque's Facebook updates commenting on the plot developments. At the end, while the singers have a jolly 'wrap-up' chorus, the dancers elegantly sneak off-stage to down a quick glass of bubbly and back onstage again.

Some may find this commentary on the performance distracting, and it is not entirely visible from the stalls without moving one's gaze from the stage. Similarly, depending on where one is sitting, one may not notice the by-play in the circle box where one or other of the ladies - Dominique, when not on stage - sits, watching the action with a male companion, who later produces the backstage bubbly.

But this production is so good, so exuberant, and it works without these extras.