Angular animate query returning zero elements - html

Question

Using Angular, I wanted to make an animated display list. The problem is that I am getting this error:
Objects are in the array and show up on the screen, but are not animated.
This is what the HTML code looks like, where I iterate through the table and display the elements that I want to be slowly displayed (animation):
<section [#listAnimation]="articles.length">
<div *ngFor="let article of articles">
<div class="card border-0">
<div class="row no-gutters">
<div class="col-md-4 mt-3">
<div class="container-text-image">
<img [src]="article.mainImageSrc" onerror="this.onerror=null; this.src='..\..\..\assets\notFound.png';" class="card-img" [alt]="article.mainImageFullName">
<div class="label bottom-left">
<h3 class="label-text">
{{article.category}}
</h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="col-md-8">
<div class="card-body">
<h5 class="card-title mt-0">{{article.title}}</h5>
<p *ngIf="article.description != null" class="card-text description-text">{{article.description}}</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
This is what the animation code looks like in a component:
const listAnimation = trigger('listAnimation', [
transition('* <=> *', [
query(':enter',
[style({ opacity: 0 }), stagger('60ms', animate('600ms ease-out', style({ opacity: 1 })))],
),
query(':leave',
animate('200ms', style({ opacity: 0 })),
)
])
]);
#Component({
selector: 'app-articles',
templateUrl: './articles.component.html',
styleUrls: ['./articles.component.css'],
animations: [listAnimation]
})
Here's a snippet of code where I get my backend data into an array:
private fetchArticles = (): void => {
this.loaderService.show();
this.articlesService
.getPortalArticles(this.getArticlesParams())
.pipe(
finalize(() => {
this.setArticleMainImg();
this.loaderService.hide();
})
)
.subscribe(
(result) => {
this.articlesCount = result.totalItemsCount;
this.articles = result.items;
},
(error) => { }
);
}
Any ideas what might be causing the error? I realize that I can add {optional: true} to the animation code, but this will only get rid of the error and the animation will still not work.