In the Netherlands, Mark Wigglesworth is already a musical legend for his work with Dutch youth orchestras. Hopefully, in addition to the year and a bit when he wrought miracles at English National Opera, he will become so in the UK after his training of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. That culminated in last night's Prom, with more than a little help from co-inspirer Nicola Benedetti. It's worth beginning at the very end to note how, 12 years on from the (then) Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela's game-changing Prom with Gustavo Dudamel, the NYOGB not only reminded us of the Venezuelans' performance-piece approach to Bernstein's "Dance at the Gym" sequence from West Side Story, but equalled it in sheer electric charge.

By then, the adrenalin and concentration had been flowing through three remarkable interpretations. The start was as visceral as the unofficial finish, wood snapping on strings as Chelyabinsk-born Lera Auerbach’s Icarus flapped wildly in mid-air before biting the dust (“Humum mundere”, as the NYO’s programme but not the Proms’ tells us, is the title of the opening sequence). What refreshment to hear original melodic lines from a contemporary composer; and what a connection to the tragic end of Prokofiev's second-half Shakespearean narrative with the mesmerising final ritual of “Requiem for Icarus”. Nicola Benedetti in NYO PromSpring rebirth came with Benedetti’s bewitching engagement in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, matched for forward-moving mobility by Wigglesworth (were those full-orchestral Polonaises a bit too fast? Not in context). From the back of the hall, her upper-register sweetness sounded ravishing, and it wasn’t necessary to hear every note in the fast passage-work given the level of heady communication. Benedetti had already shown us what a Mensch she is as an ambassador for musical youth in last year’s BBC Young Musician Prom, and she did so again in a candid and typically generous speech before her encore, forestalling my own lines here by pointing out as a mark of teamwork the way the wind soloists handed lines to one another in the first movement’s second group of themes.

She then gave them and us a treat with the wayward folksy wistfulness of "As the Wind Goes", second movement of the Fiddle Dance Suite written for her by Wynton Marsalis, walking off the platform to infinity at the end (the last time I witnessed that was in the premiere of Matt Kaner’s Stranded at the 2017 Europe Day Concert in St John's Smith Square, when violinist Benjamin Baker's breaking away was a symbolic gesture of the self-harm the UK may still do itself).

Wigglesworth had fashioned his own dramatic-symphonic sequence from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. The whole ballet score can be a magnificent Wagner-without-words experience in the concert hall, as Valery Gergiev used to show us, and any selection is bound to make you miss something: while it was acceptable, if regrettable, to shed the Nurse, the Capulet ball music and Friar Laurence, there was one omission which could have given us a fuller picture here – the suite-fusion of “Romeo and Juliet before parting”, which also gives us a bit of the crucial death-simulting-potion music at the end; “Juliet’s Bedroom” was less powerful.

No doubt, though, about the urgency and continuity of the performance. We plunged into the violence of Montagues and Capulets in another suite synthesis before Wigglesworth reverted entirely to the full ballet score, giving us the dance-into-fight sequence from Act One, violins hell-for-leather in combat as if they were the section of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Their delicacy in the portrait of Juliet was equally sophisticated, the muscle of the lines in the Balcony Scene' Love Dance worthy of the very best orchestras. Never, surely, has work on the NYO string playing reached this level of adaptability and depth. Brass drove their searing lines to hair-raising effect in “The Death of Tybalt”, preceded by equally terrifying – and accelerating, odd but exciting - timpani thwacks, and the winds coasted “Juliet’s Death” towards an enigmatic ending. Wigglesworth's shaping was at the highest level of creative conducting throughout; much as I like Edward Gardner, this should have been the London Philharmonic Orchestra's choice for Jurowski's successor (announced this week). What a treat for the young participants of NYO’s “Inspire” scheme in the audience as well as for the rest of us. I heard one of them say afterwards, “I’m going to have to do a run now, I’m too excited”. I knew how he felt. There may be more surprising Proms to come, but there won't be a more thrilling one.

It’s no disrespect to our professional orchestras to say it makes a difference when everyone on stage for a concert thinks it’s a really big deal. That’s what you get every year with the National Youth Orchestra Prom.

This year it opened with superhero music: the London premiere of Icarus, by Lera Auerbach. Purposeful, dark and intense, and ultimately rather two-dimensional, it often wouldn’t seem out of place in a Marvel movie. Frenzied, close-circling strings in the first movement give way to a solemn dance in the second, with high solo strings above grumbling brass, all dying away into one pure tone as a percussionist rubs the rim of a wine glass. The NYO players, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, threw themselves at it.

They did the same for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and there were some memorable moments: the glow of the first big string tune; the burst of energy as the finale erupted on to the scene. Soloist Nicola Benedetti had been working with the orchestra during their week-long course and the rapport showed. For herself, Benedetti shaped a secure and expansive performance, giving a real kick to the dance sections of the finale. Her encore, from the Fiddle Dance Suite written for her by Wynton Marsalis, kept on swinging as she walked slowly offstage.

Speaking before her encore, Benedetti had paid tribute to the orchestra, making the principal wind players blush. They deserved it: there were parts of Prokofiev’s ballet music for Romeo and Juliet – given in Wigglesworth’s own selection – that I haven’t heard played better. Wigglesworth didn’t wallow in the slow music, nor did he have to whip his players along in the fight scenes; the fact that he seemed to need to do so little spoke of meticulous rehearsal.

Their encore was Bernstein’s Mambo from West Side Story – the calling card of another Proms favourite youth ensemble, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. Slickly played with a British rather than a Latin style of abandon, it had a bit of freestyling nonetheless. At the end, even the cellists were on their feet. Why should the Bolívars have all the fun?