The first of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s collaborations took Broadway by storm back in 1943. Over 70 years later its popularity continues undiminished, not least at the Proms where, on Friday, it received not one but two complete performances – matinee and evening.

Proms stagings of such things – recent years have seen My Fair Lady and Kiss Me, Kate on the Albert Hall platform – have become not just more frequent but altogether better resourced. The venue is a tricky one in which to stage almost anything, and Rachel Kavanaugh’s production – with its all-dancing as well as all-singing farmers, cowboys and pioneer womenfolk, enthusiastically high-kicking to Alistair David’s vital choreography – took several steps forward in this respect; though the amplification required in a venue of this size inevitably meant that dialogue tended to go mushy.

None of these projects would have happened without the unstinting commitment of conductor John Wilson, here in his prime element in music to which he brings total devotion. He makes no apologies for performing “every last quaver” of the score – even if the result gave us a first half of Wagnerian proportions, with a couple of numbers most Broadway producers would surely insist on cutting.

With this particular cast, though, one scarcely minded. Exemplifying all-American wholesomeness was the healthy baritone of Nathaniel Hackmann’s burly Curly, effortlessly matched by the apple-pie fragrance of Scarlett Strallen’s lyrical Laurey. Robert Fairchild’s half-tetchy, half-amiable Will Parker eventually paired off with Lizzy Connolly’s Ado Annie – twangy vowels and all – overriding less than whole-hearted competition from Marcus Brigstocke, who worked hard at the part of the preposterous Persian peddler, Ali Hakim. Belinda Lang presided benignly as the daffy but pragmatic Aunt Eller.

Instilling darkness at the centre of the piece is the sleazy psychopath Jud Fry, whose mesmeric realisation by David Seadon-Young gave the stalking outsider a measure of three-dimensionality that added considerable stature to whole enterprise. The way the community came together to absolve itself of any legal responsibilities following his violent death was aptly troubling.

But ultimately the evening belonged to the dapper Wilson and his hand-picked, nigh-on 40-piece orchestra, whose impeccably stylish accounts of Robert Russell Bennett’s original orchestrations would have made this performance unmissable all by themselves.

• Available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days. The Proms continue until 9 September. Box-office: 0845 401 5040.