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Later presidents' homes certainly put FDR's Hyde Park in the shade and put one in mind of Saddam Hussein and his palaces.

Shakespeare’s airiest souffle does put one in mind of all those half-hours of zaniness that once dominated prime time: clueless hicks living in Beverly Hills and horses that talk and mischievous uncles from Mars.

The piles of clothes and the graffiti mountain, meant to signifying a snowboarding landmark, also put one in mind of a landfill and the massive amount of clothing that ends up in them every years.

And so both of these bizarre events put one in mind of a simple but arresting thesis: that we are living in the Matrix, and something has gone wrong with the controllers.

It was a heart-on-the-sleeve, big-feeling, big-textured kind of evening, starting with a reading of the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s opera “Eugene Onegin” that sounded unusually galumphing, even for the NSO, and put one in mind of amiable rhinoceroses good-naturedly attempting a few dance steps.