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Artistically ambitious and with an ego the size of a small planet, Richard Strauss was rarely backwards in coming forwards. When quizzed about the wisdom of depicting his 34-year-old self in music he brushed the matter aside, declaring himself no less interesting than Napoleon. The work in question, the self-congratulatory yet brilliantly conceived tone poem Ein Heldenleben, formed the second half of this all-Strauss programme. Before that, the Met Orchestra, here making their Proms debut, stayed on home turf with music from the operas.

The Rosenkavalier suite, compiled by hand unknown, is frankly a mess, lurching from one bonbon to the next with never a thought for musical logic (the overblown ending is truly crass). Yannick Nézet-Séguin did a decent job of papering over the cracks, letting the music unfold naturally rather than forcing its ham-fisted transitions. The love scenes were the highlight here, the orchestra spacious and shapely. If the heart didn’t leap as it might, it was likely due to the absence of the human voice.

South African soprano Elza van den Heever righted the balance. A magisterial fury in fuchsia, she delivered a visceral account of the final scene from Salome, running the gamut from implacable vengeance to unhinged lust. The voice was refulgent, her diction impressive, even if Nézet-Séguin allowed the orchestra to overwhelm her here and there.

Ein Heldenleben, 50 minutes of one man’s triumph over artistic adversity, is symphonic music on a grand scale and the kind of late-romantic meat-and-potatoes Nézet-Séguin cut his teeth on before he took the opera job in New York. This was an exceptional reading, expansive yet resolute and with a welcome determination to embrace the score’s more tender moments. Persnickety woodwind and a duo of baleful tubas conjured up the composer’s carping critics while Benjamin Bowman’s sinuous solo violin invoked the hero’s capricious companion. Martial offstage brass and a tour de force orchestral battle preceded a glowing account of the hero’s works of peace and a perfectly judged ending.

The playful exchange surrounding Van den Heever’s memory lapse in an otherwise radiant account of Strauss’s Zueignung only added to the impression of an undeniably class act.

• Available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September