Links: De Materie, Adriana Lecouvreur

In Tuesday's Washington Post:

Great Noise Ensemble wrangles with Andriessen's "De Materie," by Anne Midgette.

Washington Concert Opera's "Adriana": Affairs of the heart reimagined, by Joe Banno.

Edited to add: National Master Chorale triumphs in unusual mix, by Cecelia Porter.

There was something wonderful about watching Andriessen's "De Materie" beneath the overhang of a giant Calder mobile in the National Gallery of Art.

Andriessen, caught at intermission (and beaming with pleasure at the whole event), described how the huge shadow had arced over the players during rehearsals.

"It doesn't always move," he said, gesturing up to where the mobile was lazily drifting in its fixed circle. "It's the heat from the bodies, and the music, that makes it go."

Sure enough, during the second half of the concert, the Calder mobile began nearly whirling. As the music boogie-woogied and then clanged, again, again, with the percussion that opened the fourth movement like tolling bells, the mobile turned, and turned, sending its shadow over the audience, rhythmic, insistent, lowering, like the swooping of a bird.

After the performance, after the applause, as the musicians and audience drifted outside and I waited near the exit, I looked up. The mobile was completely still, as if it had never moved at all.