Performer: Amy Owens

A good audience turnout for the opening of Noseda's third NSO season justifies an all-20th-century program centering on Carl Orff's popular and direct setting of medieval poems about real life and fate, but also presenting gentler works of religious reflection.

Torrential downpours and the croaking of consumptive frogs fail to dampen spirits at Wolf Trap's National Symphony Orchestra concert featuring pianist Seong-Jin Cho, JoAnn Falletta and a massive community chorus.

The opera can be summed up by a line sung by the Countess in Act 4: “You’re killing her with all this noise.”