Peter Grimes – review

Opera North's return to its peerless production of Peter Grimes is coloured with tragedy. Richard Angas – a towering character actor possessed of one of the deepest, gravelliest bass voices imaginable – collapsed and died in rehearsals.

The company has dedicated the revival to him, which seems appropriate since the role Angas was due to play – the lawyer, Swallow – sets the tone of the entire opera, cautioning Grimes after the suspicious death of his young apprentice not to acquire another boy.

If the definition of madness is to keep repeating the same action while anticipating a different result, then Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts's Grimes is certifiably insane. If his performance was deep when the production was new, it is practically fathomless now. A sturdy figure with a spine-tingling tenor to match, there's a terrifying moment in which he raises the broken body of his apprentice above his head as effortlessly as a football supporter waving a scarf.

Director Phyllida Lloyd subtly updates the action to the 1970s, which is probably as far as its sensible to go without introducing tabloid reporters to hack Grimes's phone. Anthony Ward's design is a marvel of austerity, combining little more than a diaphanous net, some duckboards and a dark horizon. The ensemble work is sublime: as the townsfolk set out on the warpath, one longs for a decibel meter to confirm that this must be the loudest choral singing you'll ever hear.

New conductor Jac van Steen is the only unfamiliar element, without managing to sound like it. And though the production was first seen in 2006, and again in 2008, Opera North's celebration of the Britten centenary would be unthinkable without it – a rare instance in which repeating an action with the same result can be the definition of success.