Gonzales Cantata

>> We think the highlight of your week likely will be whichever one of the chamber music performances you choose for Friday night out. For those of you on a budget, try the free performance by Salzburg’s Hyperion Ensemble (February 4, 8 p.m.) at the Library of Congress. It’s too late to pre-order a ticket through Ticketmaster, though you can chance showing up early and hoping for an unused seat.

>> The same evening (February 4, 8 p.m.) will feature the return of the superlative Klavier Trio Amsterdam to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The program will include two Beethoven trios (op. 1/3, and the Kakadu Variations, op. 121a) and the second piano trio of Saint-Saëns. Tickets: $50.

>> To get your fix of both opera and experimental theater, a trip to Baltimore is in order for the final performances of the American Opera Theater, which folds up later this year. They will open a production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas this week (February 4, 5, 11 and 13), at Baltimore Theater Project — paired quite unusually with a staging of the Gonzales Cantata, Melissa Dunphy’s 2008 musical setting of the text of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s Congressional hearing.

>> In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Mark Morris Dance Group returns to the GMU Center for the Arts with performances of two works: one new to the area and a classic (February 4 and 5, 8 p.m.).