With the centenary of the composer’s birth looming next month, Opera North’s Festival Of Britten is timely. These two revivals of works that enjoyed powerful first appearances precede a new production of Death In Venice, which opens on Thursday. They set a daunting standard.

This Phyllida Lloyd production of Peter Grimes once seen is never forgotten: its impact is terrifying, not least when the Suffolk villagers dismember an effigy of Grimes.

They are in thrall to an ocean that intermittently looms behind them in Anthony Ward’s sparse set, while a huge fishing-net engulfs the sailors who erect it. He rightly trusts his audience to imagine the fittings at the Boar, most of the dance at the Moat Hall, and the hut on the cliff (here a watch-tower platform).

The cast and orchestra do the rest. Jac van Steen takes a leisurely, rather than urgent, view of the score, a careful and certainly accurate reading where more dramatic propulsion might be useful.

But his singers do him proud. Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts repeats what may prove his career-defining role as Grimes, shaven-headed, shambling, his inarticulacy driving him inexorably into mental derangement. He is brutally compelling every step of the way.

Giselle Allen’s beautifully controlled Ellen makes a perfect, youthful foil. Lesser roles are keenly observed, notably Robert Hayward’s earnest Balstrode, Mark Le Brocq’s Boles, and the raunchy nieces, Jennifer France and Aoife O’Sullivan. The chorus is immaculately disciplined. A gripping, memorable night.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is barely less vivid, if for quite different reasons. Martin Duncan’s production starts from the premise that fairyland is childhood territory, and he gives the 18 fairies (both boys and girls, though in identical blond wigs, black wings and white gym kit) pride of place. They respond with excellent singing and a thoroughly disciplined sense of theatre.

James Laing and Jeni Bern repeat their roles as Oberon and Tytania, he with clarity if occasionally underpowered, she with lovely tone and more than a dash of eroticism. Neither is especially conspiratorial.

The lovers - Andrew Glover and Kathryn Rudge as Lysander and Hermia, Quirijn de Lang and Sky Ingram as Demetrius and Helena - make a happy quartet, almost convincing in Britten's slightly stilted misunderstandings.

But it is the Rude Mechanicals who steal the show. Their play has the audience in stitches. Led with imperturbable confidence by Henry Waddington’s Bottom (doubling as Pyramus), their slapstick is natural and persuasive. Nicholas Sharratt’s Flute cavorts hilariously as Thisbe. Daniel Abelson is the lithe, manic Puck.

Stuart Stratford is once again exemplary, seeming to have his players in the palm of his hand. Throughout the first two acts, he keeps them in a hushed dreamland, letting them loose for the hilarity of Act 3. Another show it would be a shame to miss, great for the whole family.

• Further performances in Leeds until October 26, then on tour until November 23. www.operanorth.co.uk