better, a trend reflected in every endeavor from food to the stage. Herewith, a look at some of the highs and lows of the past year in the arts.

— Compiled by Steffen Silvis, Frank Kuznik, Darrell Jónsson, Mimi Rogers and Dave Faries

Film: The good, the bad and ...

Dicken's classic line from A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," is a perennial favorite when taking stock of any year's film offerings, and 2006 was no exception. Whether you believe that we live in an age of wisdom or one of foolishness really depends upon your personal threshold of pain and how much of the Hollywood "product" you are forced to endure.

As premieres in Prague can be upward of two years after official openings Stateside, it's difficult to make too many grand pronouncements about a particular year's themes and concerns, except, of course, for the Czech films that saw the light of day in 2006. Here there was a distinct fall in quality from 2005, with Czech film starting off somewhere just below beneath contempt in January with Pavel Göbl's dull, stultifying Rail Yard Blues and the mawkish excesses of Marie Poledňáková's How to Tame Crocodiles.

From there it just got worse, with Dan Wlodarszyk's clubfooted The Indian and the Nurse and, perhaps the shoddiest film of the entire season (certainly the most interminable), Věra Chytilová's Pleasant Moments Without Guarantees, which sadly showed that the once-revolutionary director has nothing left to say.

While not without faults, freshman film director Marta Nováková's Marta seems to herald the arrival of a very promising new talent to Czech cinema. But riding to the rescue at last was Jan Hřebejk's Beauty in Trouble, filled, as all his work is, with stunning, intelligent performances.

Among European films on offer, there was a noteworthy increase in productions in English. While we should be troubled by our mother tongue's cultural imperialism, it must be said that two excellent films came from this phenomenon: Spanish director Isabel Coixet's beautifully understated La Vida secreta de las palabras and the impossibly named Bent Hamer's Factotum, a Norwegian film adaptation of Charles Bukowski's book.

With the notable exception of Children of Men, British film was as anemic as the Czech output — Keeping Mum, Tideland and Pride and Prejudice, anyone? Cinema was better served by our cousins in the Antipodes, with the Nick Cave-scripted The Proposition and the New Zealand film The World's Fastest Indian.

Then there's the behemoth: Hollywood. There was the inescapable gallimaufry of bloated spectacle (The Da Vinci Code, Memoirs of a Geisha, World Trade Center), bloodshed-as-entertainment (Hostel and the two Saw sequels) and pointless remakes (The Omen, Poseidon, The Fog and Steve Martin's desecration of The Pink Panther). Yet, there was a surprising wealth of good American films.

Any year that can produce Thank You for Smoking; Little Miss Sunshine; United 93; Good Night, and Good Luck; Me and You and Everyone We Know; Borat; Brokeback Mountain and Capote has to be reckoned a success. There was also a refreshing return to gritty Manhattan-based crime dramas that harked back to '70s cinema: Spike Lee's Inside Man and Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin.

Finally, Prague is often the ideal home for a cinephile, with its wealth of festivals. This year's Music on Film-Film on Music Festival was bigger and better than ever, with the highlight being DJ Socalled's live accompaniment to Paul Wegener's silent German classic, Der Golem. This year's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival also offered a strong lineup of films, even as the idea (and need) of a separate cinema fades as gay goes mainstream.

As for 2007? The distribution lists look to be more of the same: the good, the bad and the ugly.

— Silvis

Classical music: Enough with the anniversaries

Is it possible to get too much of a good thing? That was the question by the end of 2006, when the birth anniversaries of two musical giants — Mozart (250th) and Shostakovich (100th) — put them on every program of note throughout the year, sometimes jarringly so. One Prague Spring concert juxtaposed a Mozart piano concerto with Shostakovich's Babi-Yar symphony (No. 13).

But if there was composer fatigue, there were also welcome opportunities to hear less-performed works. The Mozart examples are endless, though certainly two standouts of the year were the National Theater productions of the operas Apollo et Hycinthus and La clemenza di Tito. The former was a revelation, a mature work in every respect written by Mozart when he was just 11 years old. The latter is more familiar, but worked surprisingly well with a contemporary gloss and minimalist set.

Shostakovich wrote movie soundtracks to stay alive when his formal composition work was banned, and it was a treat to hear many of them this year. Prague Autumn outdid itself in that regard, especially when the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow was onstage. And the Czech National Symphony Orchestra provided an electrifying live score to a screening of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin during the summer Prague Proms series.

Otherwise, it was a relatively lackluster year for the major festivals. Prague Spring did a commendable but not terribly exciting tribute to Slovak music, and took a hit when Zubin Mehta canceled his appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic. Still, an off year for Prague Spring is like a good year for most other festivals, and staging a mammoth, complicated work like Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder is an impressive accomplishment, no matter what the context.

Prague Autumn served up the usual clutch of crowd pleasers performed by visiting orchestras, which continue to pack the Rudolfinum. The only sour note was a poor performance offstage by festival director Pavel Špiroch. At one concert he fell asleep, snoring loudly through a Shostakovich symphony. And he caused a minor scandal in Denmark when he couldn't pull himself together to meet Crown Princess Mary, who came to Prague to watch the Danish National Symphony Orchestra perform.

Strings of Autumn may have been the single best festival of the year — not in scope and size, but in its adventuresome, innovative programming. This year it ranged from a cabaret performance at the National Theater by Ute Lemper to a packed house at the Rudolfinum hanging on every note (and there were many) from American jazz wunderkind Brad Mehldau. The highlight of the festival was Don Juan in Prague, an American updating of Don Giovanni that featured an impressive mixed cast of Czech and American performers.

For the major houses, it was a hit-and-miss year on the stage, with Candide (at the State Opera) and Tajemství (at the National Theater) unlikely to stay in the repertoire for long. But both houses also scored major hits. The National Theater's production of The Greek Passion is outstanding, with Martinů's riveting music easily overcoming some minor flaws in the staging. The State Opera's new La Traviata, though clearly modeled on a recent Salzburg production, is also quite good — by consensus one of its strongest offerings in years. And a State Opera premiere earlier in the year of Verdi's seldom-performed I Vespri Siciliani showcased some great music and singing.

In only its second season, Prague Proms offered a strong series of lively concerts in July, including one in which the Morgan State University Choir stayed onstage after the orchestra left and gave a spirited spontaneous performance. And the after-concert jazz nights, featuring local performers as well as visiting stars like Chris Brubeck, were excellent.

The Prague Music Festival, also in its second year, did a shorter series during August, but with nice inventive twists. Two vocal performances were held at the Miro Gallery near Prague Castle, and conductor Martin Turnovský appeared with the Prague Philharmonia and his granddaughter Julia soloing on a Mozart concerto.

For cognoscenti, Collegium Marianum's summer series of early music was once again a delight, with first-rate ensembles culled from across Europe playing at atmospheric venues like the Troja and Zbraslav chateaux. This year's standout was a performance of the Gluck ballet Don Juan by the legendary French company La Compagnie L'Eventail. There wasn't a seat to be had at the dowdy Vinohrady Theater.

And, speaking of French companies, perhaps the best one-off of the year was a performance of the Moliere-Lully comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Le Poňme Harmonique. A marvel of period manners, dance and dress played entirely by candlelight, it was another jewel in the crown of French Institute director Didier Montaigné, who unfortunately has since moved on to another posting. Bucharest's gain is very much Prague's loss.

— Kuznik

Restaurants: Less smoke, not much fire

There's something profound in the string of familiar restaurants that either changed hands or shut down for a spell this past year with no tweaks to outward identity. Bellevue and V Zátiší closed for remodeling and menu revisions, reopening in early fall. New faces took up the reins at U Malířů and Atelier. At náměstí Míru, Retro settled for a quick facelift. The Globe threw on a splash of paint and other minor modifications, but otherwise kept the same name and location.

The series of changeless changes amounted to perhaps the most notable trend on the local restaurant scene in 2006, a year in which a lot happened, but very little actually went on.

Just over a decade ago, the introduction of fresh seafood or Thai or even a Tex-Mex menu generated sensational buzz. The world was arriving in Prague, and a culinary backwater was shaking itself free from the past. Nowadays, foreign flavors have become quite commonplace — at least for those willing to adapt. As Jiří Petřík, chef-owner of Černý Kohout, explains, the challenge has become one of acclimation: It's taken locals this long to accept the notion of fine dining as an everyday event.

"People have started to change their thinking about food," acknowledges Rudolf Doležal, chef at Oliva. As a result, restaurants have been easing new items and different flavors onto their menus. Nils Jebens, owner of the Kampa Group, agrees. "The local market is stronger now," he says. "People are traveling, learning more about other dishes and coming to expect world-class cuisine here at home." As Vlastimil Pospíchal of Lví Dvůr puts it, "We kept our standards. Maybe it was even slightly better than the year before."

So that's the story line for 2006: uneventful progress. If one trend stood out, it was the increasing number of restaurants willing to shell out wads of cash for designer threads. Rumor has it that the owners of Sahara Café spent close to 1 million euros to create a vast and stunning earth-toned oasis. The brand-new Japanese restaurant Samurai decked itself out in stark black-and-white up front, and installed cool tatami rooms with fountains in the back. Cowboys offers an elegantly rustic rooftop patio.

Žižkov bar owner Glen Emery worries about what he calls the "Husa-fication" of Prague establishments. But restaurateurs in 2006 moved beyond one mindless plug-and-play design. Check out the warehouse-hip look at Techtle Mechtle and, to a lesser extent, La Bodega. The popular IKEA-chic lines are evident at Purple Basil as well. Other stylish enclaves include Essensia and Bellevue (subdued refinement), Oliva (offbeat, handmade and arty), Coffee & Cigars (international urban) and V Zátiší (what happens when you allow an artist free reign).

Pubs and restaurants paid a bit more attention to the non-smoking crowd. Square set up a smoke-free section for the first time in its existence. Bellevue hired a team to conduct a survey before reopening and found that 90 percent of the restaurant's potential guests preferred to dine in clean air. Kolíbka extinguished tobacco altogether.

For all the positives, 2006 was also a somewhat tedious year. Must every restaurant serve caprese and Parma ham? Can't anyone learn to make a martini? (It's really simple.) Why don't more places bother to figure out the meaning of an imported dish before putting it on the menu? If you order the "potato skins with bacon" at Mezcal, for example, you'll get a gooey mass of boiled, skinless spuds covered by a single thick slice of ham.

Bars and restaurants in Prague still take far too many shortcuts. And the lingering shrug ("It only cost me 65 Kč") is part of what dismayed Jeremy Maggs, the South African travel writer who, in the summer of 2006, labeled Czech food the world's worst. Despite the steady growth of top-notch restaurants, for many visitors Prague dining still means dumplings and overcooked, heavily salted meat.

But why dwell on negatives? It's better to recognize the chefs struggling to revive Czech cookery, trying to push it to the same level as country French in the global culinary imagination — chefs like Petřík or Roman Paulus at CzecHouse. And consider the restaurants earning international recognition from Michelin and other organizations. There's the neighborhood Italian joint Aromi and the slick New Town French destination Brasserie M.

While tourists are lured to subpar hospodas and many people pick and choose places based on price, several very good Czech pubs quietly went about their business in 2006, drawing strong crowds. In this category, think of Bredovský dvůr, Ferdinanda and U Dělového kříže.

The scene reflects, as Doležal points out, a kind of underground swell of support for restaurants that get things right. "What I've seen is more of the good-food-at-a-moderate-price trend," he says. "I see it continuing, with people looking for new restaurants and better quality."

My own personal 2006 awards: for best new restaurants, Oliva, Fluidum and Essensia. Best new pub: Budvarka (technically not new, but completely revamped early in the year). Best new quick-service concept: Modrý Zub. Best new chef (at least, new to the Czech Republic): Jerome Lorieux, La Provence.

— Faries

Pop music: 2006's accidental discoveries

On any given night in Prague, a vast musical landscape emerges in just about every district. Whether it's the acoustic tramping-campfire jams in suburban beer joints, punk rock blowouts at 007 Strahov or the ongoing symphonic concerts in the city center, the range of musical expression is incredibly diverse.

That held true in 2006. From the shredding innovations of the Italian-U.S. power trio known as Twin Dragons layering on blues-rock last month at Vagon to the Magreb trances that the Budapest-based Chalaban used to fill the dance floor at Všebaráčnická Rychta early last spring, the year had no shortage of pleasant surprises for local concert goers.

Prague has a wealth of big-name pop acts coming through (Pink and Christina Aguilera in the past month, just to name two), but smaller venues featuring lesser-known names are where discovery awaits. For instance, at an intimate concert at Prague 6's Kaštan early in the year, an intersection between sci-fi and Czech jazz could be found in a trio called Gamé. The music traversed a jazz orbit in a vehicle upholstered with Stockhausen's futurism, powered with Charlie Hadenesque lyricism and detailed with the chrome of 20th-century percussion.

There were moments of stark contrast as well, as in February, when the Marseilles a capella group Lo Cor de la Plana performed at the Estates Theater dressed not in tuxedos, but in well-worn street clothes. Onstage, as the members shared a bottle of wine, they took the audience on a journey across France down through Italy and all the way to Tunisia. This sextet's repertoire, based on endangered Occitan peasant tunes, was a far cry from the sort of royal-sponsored pomp the theater's founders had in mind. Yet, in terms of beauty and finesse, this rustic music draped Mozart's ghost that night like a tailored suit.

You never know where great music will pop up. One Friday this past spring I was walking past the Dinitz Café near náměstí Republiky when I heard loud Cuban music pouring into the street. Looking in the windows, I saw a group of newly arrived Caribbean musicians known as Son Caliente overwhelming the café in a full blaze of Afro-Cuban fire. Instantly I got on my mobile phone and changed my plans for the evening. The cover I paid the doorman turned out to be one of the best 150 Kč I've ever spent in this city.

There's one other enduring musical image from 2006, as surreal as it was indelible: seeing the Tuareg band Tinariwen, dressed in blue-and-white Saharan clothes, draped with electric guitars playing on a midsummer day on Štvanice island. If, during the '90s, somebody had told me that I would one day be sitting on the banks of the Vltava River watching a band of desert nomads playing Saharan rock, I would have suggested either going back on the medication or lowering the dosage. Yet, on that breezy June afternoon, another epiphany was provided by Prague's Respect Festival.

Nearly every musical genre imaginable is now available in Prague, whether performed by touring artists, practiced by recent émigrés or interpreted by Czechs — and often, a combination of all three. All you need to find a music event to match any possible taste is to hop on a tram and look for it.

— Jónsson

Art: International flavors

Since 1989, the closing months of the year always bring the much-anticipated announcement of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for artists younger than 35. The latest Chalupecký laureate is Barbora Klímová, a 29-year-old artist from Brno, south Moravia, where this year's exhibition of Chalupecký finalists and the award ceremony took place. Prague audiences haven't had much opportunity to become familiar with the work of this artist, whose making of conceptual art often involves creating situations or objects that prompt participation by the public in seemingly chance encounters.

This is the second year in a row that the award has gone to a female artist from the Brno area whose conceptual work centers on human interaction and situations. (Last year, the prize went to Kateřina Šedá, whose highly original project took place in her family home and involved her grandmother.) If the award monitors the pulse of Czech contemporary art, there seems to be a growing trend toward subtle action art and conceptual forays into public space — perhaps reaching back to tendencies that took root on the Czech art scene in the 1970s and '80s.

Most of the other finalists this year also tend toward either conceptual art (Dominik Lang, the four-member group Rafani) or work that is politically focused (Jan Jakub Kotík, Rafani again).

In just a few short years, biennials have become a familiar part of the summer art atmosphere in Prague. In 2006, Prague's two rival biennials took the year off, so the summer months belonged to an art-world newcomer billing itself as an "anti-biennial." "Tina B." (a sly acronym for "This is not a Biennial") brought lots of fresh and challenging international contemporary art to multiple venues across the city, with its main display at the National Gallery's Veletržní palác in Holešovice.

Toward the end of the year, two other ambitious international projects were realized in Prague. "Czechpoint," an exhibition and festival of political art by more than 60 artists from Europe, the Middle East and Mexico, took place at the progressive venues Galerie NoD and Galerie c2c. And the "Process Symposium" brought some 75 contemporary artists from 15 countries, along with an array of performances, to a newly renovated space at River Town Prague, aka the Holešovice outdoor market. The primary aim of organizer Mark Divo's two-month project is to establish a cross-border, cross-discipline dialogue among participants and to set the stage for future cooperation.

Other notable art shows this year included the extensive display of Art Brut at Old Town's House at the Stone Bell gallery, and an open-air display on Kampa Island of 120 large-format prints by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand from his monumental project "The Earth From Above." With a powerful combination of images and words, his exhibition pointed to alarming changes in our natural environment that result from human and industrial activity.

The Jewish Museum in Prague celebrated its centennial with a rich palette of exhibitions and events. The keynote art project was Canadian artist Melissa Shiff's large-scale video installation Ark, a site-specific sculpture conceived for the lane next to the Pinkas Synagogue, in which a video is projected across the prow of the ship. The video can be viewed daily from dusk till midnight through mid-January.

As 2007 dawns, art enthusiasts can look forward to the next round in the battle of the biennials: one organized by the National Gallery and the other put on by the editors of Flash Art magazine (which started releasing a Czech edition this year).

And, if National Gallery Director Milan Knížák gets his way, the coming year will see the abolishment of entry fees to the permanent collections of all National Gallery venues, as is the practice at other national galleries from London to Washington, D.C. With the admission price at Veletržní palác, home to the National Gallery's modern and contemporary collection, set at 250 Kč ($12), the plan would encourage a far greater number of visits. The Culture Ministry rejected the proposal earlier this year, but Knížák (who has run for Senate on the Civic Democratic Party ticket) will keep pushing for it. And coming changes on the political scene just may give new life to his idea.