In the last few years, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has appeared in a series of art song recitals dressed up as significant dramatic events. Washington Performing Arts presented the latest one, an eco-conscious bit of virtue signaling she calls “Eden,” Sunday night in the Music Center at Strathmore with the early music ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro. The musicians have also just recorded the program for Erato.

More about the bells and whistles later, but high praise first for the quality of the music-making in this 90-minute concert, performed without an intermission. Maxim Emelyanychev conducted the start of the opening work, The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, in near-total darkness. The string ensemble around him on the left side of the stage played limpid, long-breathed chords of fragile harmonies, from memory at first until their stand lights turned on.