NEW YORK — The aura of history happening was as thick as the humidity Tuesday night outside Radio City Music Hall. “Tommy” had returned.

The Who, the British rock band that released the rock opera as an album 20 years ago, reawakened their “deaf, dumb and blind” pinball wizard, returning him to the stage for the first time since 1970.

The 5,000 fans who paid from $75 to $1,000 to see the show, a benefit for autistic and abused children, were on their feet for the opening salvos of the “Overture” and the rousing finish of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” — and dozens of times in between. There were flaws — Roger Daltrey’s voice suffered in the latter numbers and Pete Townshend forgot some of the lyrics to “Sensation” — but the performance still ranked as a major pop culture event.

This “Tommy” was certainly a different animal than it was when the original four-piece Who thundered through it scores of times during 1969-70. Arrangements had been changed on some songs to accommodate Townshend, Daltrey and John Entwistle’s 15-piece entourage, often for the better: “Eyesight to the Blind” crackled with a faster, funkier gate; the instrumental “Sparks” soared with synthesizer, guitar and bass solos and brassy horn charts; a head-snapping “Pinball Wizard” finished with a bluesy vamp, and “Sally Simpson” received a gentler treatment than the rocked-up album version.

Using slides projected at the back of the stage to enhance the narrative, the group also altered the song order and omitted the turgid “Underture” altogether. And it pointedly paid tribute to late drummer Keith Moon, whose manic attack was missed Tuesday, by flashing his image onto the screens during the sadistic “Uncle Ernie.”

It all met with a rapturous response from a crowd whose mix of suits and ties and tie-dyed shirts testified to “Tommy’s” longevity. There were music industry bigwigs, fans old enough to have seen the Who perform “Tommy” at the Metropolitan Opera House and Woodstock in 1969, and fans younger than the two-record album, which has become one of pop music’s most durable landmarks.

“I hate to sound cliched, but the thing is a classic,” said Southfield-based radio consultant Fred Jacobs, creator of the classic rock format that has helped perpetuate “Tommy” in the ’80s. “It was so unique, something nobody had ever encountered before. That they’ve decided to do it again is perfectly acceptable; it’s something that should be done on some periodic basis.”

“Tommy” has been reinvented by others over the years, including a Ken Russell film, a symphonic treatment and a ballet based on Townshend’s mystical tale of the impaired youth who experiences the world through musical sensations and turns evangelical after a miracle cure. Those treatments have enhanced “Tommy’s” aura, but they don’t live up to a Who performance of the piece.

“We shouldn’t have let it go, but we did,” Townshend said in an April interview. “I think, now, that it has to be kept alive.”

Added Daltrey, “It took us over at one point. It was like there was nothing else to us but ‘Tommy.’ ”

Indeed, until “Tommy,” the Who was known for anthemic singles like “My Generation” and “Can’t Explain.” Other rock operas had been attempted, including the Who’s own “A Quick One,” but there had never been one so focused and fully realized. “Tommy” raised the Who to a new plane of regard.

Daltrey and Who manager Bill Curbishley proposed the idea of resurrecting “Tommy” as a way of celebrating the Who’s 25th anniversary. Townshend liked the charity aspect; the Who hopes to raise $6 million from Tuesday’s show, an Aug. 24 performance in Los Angeles and from corporate sponsorship from Anheuser-Busch to benefit the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation Inc., charities for abused children and the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

But he also knew that doing “Tommy” would send the Who, which staged a farewell tour in 1982, back on the road for a full-scale itinerary. “I knew we’d need a big band and that it would be very expensive to put on,” Townshend said. “How would we make sure the charity would earn any money? I could see ... that the way we would pay for it would be to tour.”

So the Who brought back “Tommy,” and vice-versa. On Tuesday, an hour-long set of greatest hits, plus a cover of Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” reminded the Radio City crowd that the Who was about more than “Tommy.” But on its stadium tour dates, a 40-minute opening blast of “Tommy” material has reminded the audiences that the rock opera is still very much a part of the Who.

And that’s the way it should be. If this summer’s tour is designed, as Townshend said, to “celebrate the Who and its music,” it’s only fitting that much of the hoopla goes to “Tommy,” which Tuesday’s performance re-established as a vital piece of pop culture heritage.

Tickets for the Who’s July 25 concert at the Pontiac Silverdome are available at the box office and Ticketmaster outlets.

The recently reunited British rock band the Who played its rock opera “Tommy’’ for the first time in 17 years Tuesday at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. The 40-minute piece used a 15-member set of players and projected images.