Although Glyndebourne was the venue for the premieres of two of Britten’s operas in the 1940s, it took until 1992 for Peter Grimes to arrive there. The photos in this handsomely packaged set – the threatening grey skies, the shingle beach, the heavy Victorian overcoats and shawls – remind us that Trevor Nunn’s production was so realistic that it hardly seemed like theatre.

By the time of this third revival in 2000, now in Glyndebourne’s new opera house, the production had acquired a dangerous edge. The catalyst was Mark Wigglesworth, whose volatile conducting is always to the fore. Timings tell us that Wigglesworth leads one of the slowest performances on disc but that is because he stretches the drama as only live theatre allows, giving the quieter moments space but pushing the climaxes to the edge. The storm interlude, splendidly played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, erupts in a furore of woodwind lightning flashes and snapping and growling brass, accentuated by the dry theatre acoustic.

The singers, often further back on the stage than is ideal, tend to come off second best. Even the fine central pair sometimes sound muted. Anthony Dean Griffey, the first US tenor in the title-role on disc, is an impressive performer who steers a convincing middle course, playing Grimes as a poetic dreamer like Pears but lit with flashes of Vickers’s violence and Langridge’s mental instability. Vivien Tierney is similarly well cast as an Ellen Orford made wise by life’s experiences and their scenes together chart their changing feelings with real-life immediacy. Enlivened by stage business, the Borough’s crowd scenes, led by the vivid personalities of Steven Page’s Balstrode, Susan Gorton’s rumbustious Auntie, Stafford Dean’s pompous Swallow and Christopher Maltman’s youthful Ned Keene, have a communal, lived-in feel.

In sum, the strengths and weaknesses of this set all derive from the fact that it comes from live performances. The recording is not a first choice – the authority of Britten’s historic Decca set remains unchallenged and no other modern tenor has surpassed the intensity of the late Philip Langridge in Chandos’s cycle – but as a Peter Grimes hot from the stage this Glyndebourne set makes a vivid souvenir.