In the nascent days of Tanglewood, ladies from the Berkshires gathered for tea to drum up support for a series of concerts led by the famed conductor Serge Koussevitzky and his Boston Symphony Orchestra. These days, the donors and audiences come from all over the world. On Friday, they came for what is sure to go down as one of the most anticipated opening nights of Tanglewood’s history: the one at which maestro James Levine returned to the podium after a four-month absence, 35 pounds lighter than when he suffered a bad fall in March, to conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Mr. Levine walked with ease to the podium, faced the audience and said simply, “Thank You” (although it could not be heard because of the applause). He tapped his hands on his chest and smiled, then turned to the orchestra and got down to work. This happened several times throughout the evening, but somehow none of the applause came as close to expressing the crowd’s appreciation as the loud booms and bright lights of the post-concert fireworks.

“I’m a shameless groupie,” Mr. Levine’s mother, Helen, said during intermission. She approves of her son’s slimming down. “It’s quite wonderful and it’s still going. When he makes up his mind, he’s quite determined,” she said.

And she is doing her part to encourage him. “In Cincinnati we have the best ice cream, from Graeter’s, and I’m not bringing it to him anymore,” she said.

That afternoon, anticipation was palpable all over the 300-acre campus. It could be heard in the chorus made by the songs of the birds and the rehearsing sopranos. And it was present in the happy accompaniment of a pianist down by the shed, provided for the hundreds of concertgoers as they laid out their picnics.

Over by the Hawthorne Tent, some 400 fancily dressed patrons gathered for the opening night gala, which raised $330,000 under the leadership of a special symphony couple: board member Jan Brett, a children’s book author and illustrator, and bassist Joseph Hearne, who has been with the symphony for 44 years. Ms. Brett designed tablecloths just for the gala, with birds, twigs, and ferns, which at the end of the night were gathered to be sent as gifts to the event’s gold benefactors.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is a complex organization. It owns the great Symphony Hall in downtown Boston as well as the 300-acre Tanglewood campus, which contains three historical homes, several performance halls, and the Tanglewood Music Center, an elite training program for young musicians.

The orchestra’s annual operating budget is $74 million, about 60% of which comes in through earned income. The gap must be closed with corporate and private support. A $318 million endowment is a good start. Then there are three annual funds, one for the symphony, one for Tanglewood, and one for the Boston Pops, run by the mighty development office led by Peter Minichiello, who was recruited from New York’s Lighthouse International.

agordon@nysun.com