Yesterday, James Levine brought his Metropolitan Opera orchestra to Carnegie Hall, with a guest soloist: the starry soprano Renee Fleming. Actually, “guest soloist” isn’t quite right: This was essentially a Renee Fleming concert. It is a mark of the conductor’s esteem for Miss Fleming that he basically turned over one of his orchestra concerts to her. He has precious few to spend, with the Met, and he spent one on her.

Which is not unwise. Miss Fleming sang two of her specialties – Strauss and Berg – and also Tchaikovsky, in which she ought to be effective. No stranger to Russian, she likes to sing Rachmaninoff songs. Her first piece on yesterday’s program was the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” The music sits low in the voice, but fortunately, Miss Fleming has an excellent bottom. (No offense.) Still, we couldn’t hear her in the first part of the scene – Mr. Levine’s orchestra overwhelmed her. We heard that voice soon enough, however, and it was lush, as always.

You could have quibbled with interpretation – or even condemned it. Some of us like more purity in this music, more girlishness (in keeping with the character, Tatiana). What’s more, all of us should like a lot less sliding. Miss Fleming threatened to portamento the thing to death.

Mr. Levine is one of the great “Eugene Onegin” conductors, in my opinion, but he did his singer no favors yesterday. He was very, very slow – and strangely lacking in incisiveness. The principal horn had a bad time of it, but hung in there, gamely. (The horn – and I can’t swear it was the same player – would perform splendidly for the rest of the afternoon.)

Later, Miss Fleming sang the five songs of Alban Berg called the Altenberg Lieder (texts by Peter Altenberg). Often, she sounds like Renee Fleming, in whatever she’s singing. (That would make sense, as she is Renee Fleming.) But you could hear plenty of Berg in her. She was tasteful, spooky, and smart, and her technical control was exemplary.

The soprano closed the concert with the Final Scene from Strauss’s “Capriccio.” Those who argue that she is one of the greatest Strauss singers ever would have found themselves safely confirmed. Miss Fleming seems born to sing music like this, and the music seems born for her. She is a top-drawer Marschallin (“Der Rosenkavalier”), a top-drawer Arabella (in the opera of that name), a top-drawer Daphne (ditto) – and a top-drawer Countess, in “Capriccio.” This Final Scene was engrossing and beguiling. Soprano and conductor covered it with twilight, just right for the Final Scene, and for most late Strauss.

Julien Robbins had a brief line as the Major-Domo, and the line was enough to reveal his refulgent bass.

You may ask whether Mr. Levine and the orchestra did anything by themselves – they certainly did. They opened the concert with Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture, one of the best crafted, and most inspired, things the composer ever wrote. From these forces, it was magnificent: glowing, growling, and incredibly purposeful. Mr. Levine made it sound like Beethoven, as is his wont, in Romantic music. He was gloriously disciplined, allowing no excess. The Met orchestra produced a rich and arresting sound, and the low strings were particularly stunning. On the final note, Mr. Levine – who sits as he conducts – rose from his chair, as if charged.

And, on the second half of the program, he and the orchestra performed the Overture and Venusberg Music from Wagner’s “Tannhauser.” This was a study in judgment – Mr. Levine’s, that is, as he built the music with rare intelligence. Some stretches were a bit sleepy, although you might prefer “dream-like.” In any case, James Levine did pretty well, for a sidekick in “The Renee Fleming Show.”

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The New York Philharmonic’s current subscription concert features a hotshot young violinist, James Ehnes. A Canadian now about 30, Mr. Ehnes made some local news a few years ago, after a concert with the Philharmonic in Central Park. As TV cameras rolled, he proposed to the woman who became his wife.

Romance aside, Mr. Ehnes can really play. His concerto with the Philharmonic is an unusual one: that of Sir William Walton. I guess I say unusual because Walton’s viola concerto is far better known. In fact, this concerto is about the best thing violists have, with orchestra. As for the violin concerto, it is sweeping, glittering, cinematic – just slightly schmaltzy. I would call it semi-Korngoldian. Also, it is as much symphonic as concertolike. That is, the orchestra is an equal musical actor, not a mere accompanist.

On Thursday night, Mr. Ehnes gave a superb account of the concerto; so did conductor Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic. From the violinist, Walton requires gobs of lyricism, and Mr. Ehnes provided them. Seldom will you hear such singing on a violin. He was utterly seamless. Mr. Ehnes’s sound was focused, and sweet – but it was never sugary.At times, he seemed underpowered. Whether that was the fault of Avery Fisher Hall, the conductor and orchestra, or the violinist himself, I can’t say for sure. Probably a combination of the first two.

(Maybe the fault lies with Walton, in the way he composed the piece.)

Technically, Mr. Ehnes seemed capable of anything. And he showed an admirable understanding of Walton’s music. Both he and Mr. Maazel were almost casual in their approach to it, unlabored, unworried, free. They were almost submissive to the music, enjoying it along with the audience. Mr. Maazel had the orchestra beautifully textured. Why the strings so often play such lousy pizzicatos – untogether ones – I wish I knew.

Readers have heard me say many times that we’re in a golden age for violinists – particularly for young ones. James Ehnes is another in the lineup. Cry for conductors, if you want, and certainly cry for composers. But don’t cry for violinists. (A tear or two may be reserved for pianists.)

The major orchestral work on the program was the Seventh Symphony of Dvorak, the first of the last three symphonies of that composer. It is for these, really, that we know him, certainly as a symphonist. The Seventh is more Germanic than the other two – less Bohemian – but it is still recognizably, and wonderfully, Dvoyrak. Mr. Maazel has a way with this composer, as he has proven many times, particularly in the “New World.”

The performance on Thursday night was solid, assured, warm, when necessary. Mr. Maazel kept self-indulgence to a minimum – it was almost nil – and the orchestra played with equal parts correctness and heart. I expected Mr. Maazel would impart some jazz to the third movement – amazing, what he can make sound like Gershwin (and happily so). He was relatively straight, however. Probably the movement with the most exotic flavor was the finale, which uplifted and thrilled.

Beginning these festivities was – appropriately enough – an overture, that to Wagner’s opera “The Flying Dutchman.” Here, too, the orchestra was first-rate. The strings were on fire, and the horns were only slightly flubbing. (In truth, they had an excellent night, from beginning to end.) The overture, on the whole, had bounce, flow, energy. One question, though: Why did the slow section have to be so slow, so ponderous? It was virtually static, blocking all musical momentum. There was no reason for that.

Nonetheless, the overture strutted its stuff, making you keen to see the entire opera.

But wait – I’m not so sure about that. I must take the opportunity to tell one of my favorite stories, which comes from my colleague, Fred Kirshnit. Years ago, his uncle, Syd, took him to the Metropolitan Opera to see “The Flying Dutchman.” When the overture was concluded, he turned to Fred and said, “It’s all downhill from here, kid.”

He has a point.