That oppressive set, however, now strikes me as a potentially significant contributor to the production’s success. It seems to swallow up half the space in the Gershwin Theater, which normally itself does the swallowing, making big musicals look puny. Here the equation is reversed, so that this big show retains enough emotional intimacy that even the tween girls in the cheaper seats can feel Elphaba’s pain.

My return visit also confirmed how significant those young fans remain to the show’s success. The audience at the evening performance I attended teemed with bopping tweens and their families. Many of the girls clearly knew the show’s score already, greeting Mr. Schwartz’s polished Broadway-pop confections and throat-searing ballads with the physical equivalent of a half-dozen smiley-face emoticons.

In retrospect, “Wicked” seems an early sign of the cultural clout — which is to say buying power — of a generation of girls (and now women) whose desire to see, and read, and sing along with stories about female empowerment has become a snowballing trend. “The Hunger Games” came along in 2008, and became one of the biggest media phenomena of the past decade. And, of course, “Frozen,” Disney’s animated blockbuster movie about two royal sisters with a complicated relationship, surely owes a significant debt to “Wicked,” and not just because Ms. Menzel gave voice to the heroine Elsa, with her snow-blowing superpowers and her megahit “Let It Go.”

When “Wicked” at last ceases to defy gravity at the box office — and that still seems a good way off — it’s a safe bet that a Broadway musical of “Frozen” will be primed to take its place.