Townshend’s ‘Quadrophenia’ is a classical rocker at the Greek Theatre

Nobody smashed a cello. No tympani were blown up.

Make no mistake, though. “Classic Quadrophenia,” complete with orchestra and choir, is a rock show.

It’s a classical-ized version of what Pete Townshend acknowledges to be his most thoroughly satisfying work, The Who’s “Quadrophenia,” which was released as a double-album in 1973 and would become a stage show and a movie. Townshend finished his brief U.S. tour of the show Saturday at the Greek Theatre.

Even with the robed choir and the orchestra complete with oboes and double basses and even a guy playing the triangle, the music thundered like rock music and the rhythms and beats were rocking rhythms and beats.

“Quadrophenia” is the story of Jimmy, a British lower-middle-class adolescent in 1964 London whose life is in crisis. It’s the second of two Townshend-penned rock operas, the previous being “Tommy.”

Some might think “Tommy’s” story the more coherent of the two, making it superior to “Quadrophenia.” But in music, lyrics, recording and performance, “Quadrophenia” shines brighter.

“Quadrophenia,” too, might connect better with its audience. Jimmy feels awkward and that he really doesn’t fit in. It’s the same desperate loneliness just about every teen goes through.

The Who, for whom Townshend has been guitarist, part-time lead vocalist, chief songwriter and unquestioned leader, has performed “Quadrophenia” in its entirety on a couple of tours, with a most-recent rendering at Honda Center in 2013. This is its first go-around without Who lead singer Roger Daltrey and with a full-on orchestra playing arrangements created by Townshend’s classically trained partner Rachel Fuller.

Saturday’s “Quadrophenia” looked like a classical music performance – a large orchestra arranged in a traditional U-shape with conductor Robert Ziegler on a platform and a choir of around 40 in the back.

We even got classic-concert touches like the first-chair violinist taking her position later and separately from the other musicians. This usually draws loud applause at a symphony performance, but this was a rock audience so only a few in the crowd recognized the moment and clapped their hands.

The ’73 “Quadrophenia” record begins with an overture of sorts, “I Am the Sea.” Saturday’s “Classic Quadrophenia” started with an overture, too, but a more formal one with the coming themes fused together more intricately and delicately.

Then the show took the on-ramp to rock ‘n’ roll with “The Real Me” and the arrival of British tenor Alfie Boe, “Classic Quadrophenia” singer since a 2014 recording of these renditions who also is on the 2015 Royal Albert Hall performance that became a DVD.

Boe sang like the singer he is, an operatic type with the big voice needed for such roles as “Les Miserables’” Jean Valjean, for which he received his first acclaim several years ago. Those sustained “Love, Reign o’er Me” notes that Who singer Roger Daltrey sometimes struggles to hit were easily reached by Boe, with power to spare.

The rocker in him came out, too. Boe did some Townshend-in-his-prime-like leaps and a couple of touchdown spikes of the microphone, and plenty of fist-pumping, too. He seemed to enjoy shouting the naughty words in the lyrics and even gave everyone the finger at the end of “Is It in My Head.”

Townshend did not make an appearance until the concert’s fifth piece, “The Punk Meets the Godfather” – sort of an oddity, as on the original album he has a prevalent lead vocal on its fourth track, “Cut My Hair.”

That would continue during the night. Parts that Townshend sang on the ’73 album, like on “Sean and Sand,” were sung Saturday by Boe. And just when you figured that Boe was going to do all the Daltrey vocals, Townshend handled Daltrey’s parts on “Drowned.”

But this was a good idea. Boe sung all the Jimmy lines, with Townshend and Billy Idol singing the parts of the other “Quadrophenia” characters – Townshend as the bus driver, for example.

Idol took the stage a handful of times, to great applause and cheers, to sing the parts of the “Ace Face,” the leader of the Mods gang to which Boe’s Jimmy character belongs for a time. He brought with him a light-hearted, even goofy, attitude, especially when doing the “Bell Boy” parts that belonged to the late and nutty Who drummer Keith Moon.

There wasn’t an electric guitar in the place, with Townshend sticking with an acoustic guitar on a couple of songs. He was especially good on that instrument on “Drowned,” as usual.

There was a well-stocked percussion section but no rock-ish drum kit. To keep the rhythm and beat going, there was plenty of pizzicato supplied by the string section.

After the final, crashing notes of “Love, Reign o’er Me,” sung by Boe with the appropriate power and passion he brought to the stage all night, a second and somewhat looser rendering of “The Real Me” served as the encore. Boe, Idol and Townshend took turns on the lead vocals.

It was an entertaining show, more for the ears than the eyes. It perhaps serves as validation, too, that with “Quadrophenia,” Townshend produced a work of music with the stamina and vitality rarely created by his peers. When Townshend would turn and look joyfully at Ziegler and the orchestra and choir, it was apparent he felt that way, too.

Townshend rejoins The Who for shows in South America later this month. It’s difficult to imagine that he is going to enjoy that as much as he seemed to enjoy Saturday night at The Greek.

‘Pete Townshend’s Classic Quadrophenia’

Where: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles

When: Sept. 16