Gustavo Dudamel flew into Tanglewood Thursday night with the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela, greeted by a wildly enthusiastic rock-concert like atmosphere and a packed house, some audience members waving the Venezuelan flag. The children, aged 9 through 16, entered soberly as a group, the young ladies all in blue with short sleeve, mid-calf dresses, the young men in black slacks and untucked white shirts. Dudamel entered to a thunderous ovation, leapt to the podium and immediately launched the orchestra into a brilliant rendering of John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Car — flashy yes, but marvelously flashy— pulsing with energy, sudden crescendos and complex rhythms. Dudamel vividly rendered the intoxication of speed and power, lust and bravura, of racing through the night in a new Ferrari, breaking all limits, culminating in a convincing crescendo that fused all of the musicians’ youthful energies into a thrilling joyride.

The first half celebrated composers from the Americas. Following Adams’s “absolutely terrifying experience,” we were treated to the lovely impressionistic tone poem by the Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez, Mediodìa en el Llano, “Midday on the Prairie” (1942). Dudamel and his young musicians rendered it vast, static and motionless, with a haunting atmospheric  “love of home” feeling, emphasizing the contrast between the tender melody rising in the strings and the more brooding, textured response from the earthier instruments. Dynamics evoked something like the eternal self-replenishing of the llanos, as the piece welled up to a passionate climax bearing a sweet solo violin voice, wistful, committed and yet slightly desolate, which saved it from falling into empty sentimentality.

In a surprise addition to the program, Dudamel asked the musicians to put down their instruments and stand up to sing. The aim was both to showcase the musicians’ voices but also to honor José Antonio Abreu, founder of El Sistema and composer in his own right. We heard a perfectly beautiful madrigal, followed by a religious hymn, designed for a standard Catholic mass, “Gloria in excelsis deo,” also beautifully pitched and interpreted.

Dudamel then returned to pure flash and fun with Albert Ginastera’s Four Dances from Estancia, an orchestral suite distilled out of a ballet that was commissioned in 1942 by Lincoln Kirstein’s American Ballet. The first movement dance Los trabajadores agricolas was vigorously muscular, exhibitionistic, edgy and collectivistic, contagious and slightly coarse. (Flash is fun! Flash is good! Maybe substance is overrated? Maybe workers just want to have a good time once in a while?) The second movement dance, Danza del trigo (“Dance of the Wheat”), featured a lyrical flute interacting with a multiplicity of instrumental timbres, evoking a sustained commitment to survival (Maybe workers just want to feed themselves and their families?) The ensuing scherzo-like third movement dance, Los peones de hacienda, featured superbly brisk and exuberant timpani, rambunctious, chaotic and dirty — more Lenny Bernstein than Aaron Copland. Dudamel infused the 4^th movement finale dance, Malambo, with a frenetic mirth, again harnessing flash and fun to defy hunger, fatigue, pain, despair. Against excellent timpani, the brass section started to sway back and forth, bobbing up and down brightly, dancing the Malambo contagiously until the whole orchestra turned into a giant fiesta in motion. Maybe kids just want to have fun? Maybe they just want to forget about all the daily horrors? Maybe substance is overblown — neurotic and morbid?

But if Flash and Fun replace Substance, how on earth will these youngsters tackle Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5? Dudamel’s answer, while highly original, cannot be dismissed out of hand: he turned it into movie music, into Show-Biz! Since Dmitri was chastised by a homicidal tyrant for engaging in “formalism” and told to compose in the Soviet-sponsored “social realist” style, maybe he wrote a parody of the sort of film score that accompanies Eisenstein’s epic films? Dudamel led his young musicians into a dramatic, theatrical first movement, focused on epic narrative rather than inner states of soul. The effect was immediately captivating, rather than reflective — escapist in the best sense rather than introspective. Orianna Rojas and Sophia Cisneros on the harps captured the mood: firm, decisive and loud — no fluttering of the heart here! Maybe kids just want heroes, success, stories?

The second movement scherzo was stripped of sarcasm and angst. The vigorous opening cellos, playful flutes and charming violin solo conveyed a circus-like atmosphere reminiscent of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastisque and of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf – pure escapism, pure fun. Show Biz is magic! Dudamel’s idiosyncratic reading turned the usually interiority-wrenched third movement largo, the heart and center of the symphony, into Hollywoodesque romance and sunset, descriptive and mesmerizing rather than angst-laden and profound. Maybe kids want make-believe love stories that make them believe in love and hope for happiness? Maybe grappling with “tragedy” through fiction on the Big Screen helps us to have faith that it will all end well? Maybe Dudamel understands social realism and why dictators favor it?

The 4^th movement embarked on a mad flight, fully allegro, a race of high strings and brass full of celebratory fireworks. When it all came crashing down, meditative strings and comforting brass pulled the mood back together, hope arising anew in the strings and harps. Dudamel led the climax at a slower tempo, but gave it intensity and the flash and glitter of the “happy ever after” endings that we crave. Fun and Flash – maybe we undervalue the sheer immediate impact of Show Biz?

Venezuela is not in a good place, and has not been in a good place for a number of years now. Dudamel told us at the start that his mission “is to transform lives through music.” He has perhaps found an accommodation with the devil – yes, but when we see and hear these wonderful young musicians, we suspend judgment. What would be their fate without Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema? Like a Pied Piper bent on saving children from a burning city through foolery and magic, Dudamel has, in effect, rescued 170 teenagers from deadly streets and famine. My sense was that he would double the size of the orchestra if he could.

Leon Golub is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and has been a lover of classical music for over 50 years.