Encore, encore

Politicians come and go, economies rise and fall, but culture endures - especially in Prague, where, despite all the city's other shortcomings, it remains the art and music hub of Central Europe. Arts funding cuts took a big bite out of local productions early in the year, but many old favorites held up, a ton of traveling performers and exhibitions came through town, and there were even some surprises in the cinemas.

From the critics who were out seeing it all throughout the year, here's a recap of 2008's hits, misses and behind-the-scenes developments.

- Compiled by Darrell Jónsson, Frank Kuznik, Mimi Fronczak Rogers, Lucie Rozmánková and Steffen Silvis

CLASSICAL MUSIC

A classical music critic could be out literally every night of the week in Prague and still not take in every performance worth seeing. Even with arts funding cuts slashing their way through budgets this year, there was still a wealth of music from the five major orchestras, two opera houses, visiting ensembles and endless festivals that fill the culture calendar. Herewith, some memorable moments from another overcrowded but invigorating year:

The Czech Philharmonic made headlines, and not always for the right reasons. The sigh of relief from the Rudolfinum was palpable in February when Eliahu Inbal was named to replace Zdeněk Mácal, who abruptly resigned as chief conductor in 2007. Inbal took the podium in April, though with a different managing director. After a protracted financial fight with musicians, Václav Riedlbauch was replaced in the fall by Vladimír Darjanin, who showed he knows how to spend big government grants as director of the new Dvořák's Prague festival in August.

Riedlbauch was a hard-working manager but not well-liked by the musicians, partly because he forced them to play modern music in his annual Prague Premieres festival, a showcase for contemporary composers. In May, some Czech Philharmonic players refused to play a piece by Kryštof Mařatka, a well-regarded young Czech composer. Riedlbauch tolerated such behavior, but Darjanin has a reputation as someone who will not. "The players will look back on Riedlbauch's tenure with moisture in their eyes," predicts one Rudolfinum habitué.

Dvořák's Prague was more of the same in a city already brimming with predictable orchestra festivals, though it was a treat to have real concerts at a time of year when there have traditionally been none here. It was a lackluster year for Prague Autumn, as well, with the biggest name on the bill, Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, turning in a creditable but hardly dazzling showing with his Sinfonia Varsovia ensemble.

Prague Spring never fails to dazzle, especially in its range of performers, which has broadened considerably in recent years. In 2008, you could see violin prodigy Midori play Shostakovich and Beethoven at the Rudolfinum, then, a few nights later, relax over cocktails with American jazz singer Freddy Cole at the funky Lucerna Music Bar. Or watch violin superstar Nigel Kennedy kick a soccer ball from the stage at Obecní dům, and, the next night, take in the excellent Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Rudolfinum.

The sentimental favorite was Jiří Bělohlávek, who filled Obecní dům two nights with fans eager to see what he's accomplished with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. But, in some ways, the most noteworthy evening of the festival belonged to Petr Kotík, the expat Czech composer, who conducted his Ostravská banda ensemble. They were note-perfect in the finest evening of modern music this reviewer has ever seen at the Rudolfinum. The concert was also a personal triumph for Kotík, who has always been something of an outsider in Prague; he was sweating and grinning like a kid in the conductor's room afterward.

It was a good year for modern music in general, with the ad hoc Prague Philharmonia group that plays the monthly Le Bel aujourd'hui series at Švandovo divadlo blossoming into Prague Modern, a permanent contemporary music ensemble with smart, dedicated musicians and great ambitions. With onetime Pierre Boulez protégé Michel Swierczewski at the helm, the group has high standards and excellent programming. In November, the new Contempuls festival debuted at La Fabrika with a tasty mix of local and international performers. Anyone who saw Germany's excellent Musikfabrik ensemble play Stockhausen's Hoffnung on opening night will not soon forget the experience.

Arguably the most popular music festival in Prague is the Summer Festivities of Early Music, which draws larger crowds every year. That's often frustrating, as the concerts have started to sell out. But it's hardly surprising given the caliber of performers the hard-working Collegium Marianum staff persuades to come here, and great venues like Troja Chateau and the seldom-seen summer refectory at Strahov Monastery. The State Opera was an ideal place to stage Jean-Denis Monory's Moliere this year, but the organizers probably overreached in putting counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky in Obecní dům. He filled the hall, but his angelic voice got lost in the big space.

Strings of Autumn also sells out most of its concerts, demonstrating the growing appeal of crossover programming. Artistic Director Marek Vrabec has started doing more original programming as well, pairing, for example, Joel Frederiksen and his Ensemble Phoenix Munich with Hradištan's Jiří Pavlica. Established stars like Russian soprano Irina Lungu and William Christie's Les Arts Florissants orchestra were strong this year, but the true delights are still in the surprises, like Arabic jazz star Rabih Abou-Khalil's excellent jazz trio, and the amazing one-man percussion machine Martin Grubinger.

Far and away the highlight of the opera year was the spring premiere of local composer Aleš Březina's Zítra se bude... (Tomorrow There Will Be...), a searing take on the 1950 communist show trial of Milada Horáková. Created as a vehicle for Czech opera star Soňa Červená, the work's riveting music and brilliant staging made it the hardest ticket in town to get - especially since it played in the Kolowrat Theater, which has only 60 seats. But the intimate staging is critical to the piece, which Březina and company will be taking on the road to London, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Helsinki in 2009, with negotiations also underway in New York.

The budget cuts seemed to sap the life out of the local opera houses in the first half of the year. The State Opera put together a delightful concert performance of Camille Saint-Saens' one-act opera Helene in February, under the guidance and baton of its energetic chief conductor and music director, Guillaume Tourniaire. Otherwise, there were just two premieres: Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer at the State Opera and Verdi's Falstaff  at the National Theater, neither particularly noteworthy.

For a while, the best opera ticket in town was at the Aero cinema, for the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. They were good in the spring, and they were even better in the fall, with an improved sound and projection system and the program expanding to the Světozor theater. It's easy to forget the dearth of local talent when you've got Karita Mattila singing Salome and John Adams's new Dr. Atomic on the big screen.

But both the National Theater and the State Opera came back strong in the fall. The latter's new La Boheme, directed by Ondřej Havelka, is outstanding. So is the new Bartered Bride at the National Theater, with director Magdalena Švecová showing what a woman's touch can lend to Smetana's classic. However, the strongest house production of the year was La finta giardiniera, an early and justly neglected Mozart opera that turned to gold in the hands of the husband-and-wife directing team Ursel and Karl-Ernst Hermann. It also features the strongest ensemble singing cast Prague has seen in a long time.

Finally, a nod to two surprisingly good visitors: Polish conductor Łukasz Borowicz, who put together a fine tribute program to Polish hero Ryszard Siwiec and brought a first-rate orchestra, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice. And the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra showed all the discipline and energy of its mother band.

The final, and lasting, orchestral impression of the year goes to the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow - partly for the impressive showing by conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev, but mostly for the extravagant display and buffet put on by the orchestra's sponsor, Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company, at Obecní dům. With Lukoil executives sitting in the president's box for the concert, one has to wonder just where King Klaus' political loyalties lie.

- Frank Kuznik

POP MUSIC

From Iggy Pop dry-humping a Marshall amp stack to Cambodian retro-rock and sacred Tibetan ceremonies, there was enough to bang everybody's gong this year in Prague. Fueling this variety was a combination of local acts, touring unknowns and legends who keep returning to rock the city of spires.

Getting the year off to a good start was the classic rockabilly of Robert Gordon and Chris Spedding, who played at Roxy in February. With Spedding's credentials reading like a who's who of '60s and '70s rock, including work with Paul McCartney, Jack Bruce and the Sex Pistols, and Robert Gordon's longstanding international role as a rockabilly statesman, they delivered their hayride-inflected rock to an appreciative audience at this sadly under-attended show.

From the Land of the Rising Sun, one of the year's biggest winter surprises was a little-known power trio from Japan: Up-tight. Looking like a crew of Osaka bay dockers in the intimate Chateau Rouge Underground space, they delivered psychedelic originals that swept the edges of death-metal, embraced the harder edges of West Coast psychedelia and gave a few nods to Pink Floyd. For the rest of the year, Up-tight's Zen-like rock mastery was a hard act to follow.

For fans of the powerful emotional charge that post-rock packs, Scotland's Mogwai delivered a stellar performance at Archa in November. Earlier in the year, in a double bill at 007, the UK's Winchester Club extended the explorations of groups like Mogwai and Tortoise into an oceanic realm highlighted by the inspirations of John Cage. From the Midwestern United States, A Whisper in the Noise, who take their cues from the darker compositions of Robert Schumann and the cool art-rock of Low, proved once again that when power mixes with sublime composition, the results can be impressive.

Although the early April appearance of Leipzig's Die Art was a reminder of the poignant results that can be gained from a fusion of post-punk German and British rock, it would have helped to know a bit of German when Berlin's Einstürzende Neubauten performed at Archa in April. Given Neubauten's focus on Blixa Bargeld's poetry, and the band's tendency to bury its industrial roots beneath song structures, the only moment that fit its dangerous legacy came when a flood of metal shards was slowly poured from a giant bin mounted above the stage.

Anyone who wants a real taste of the 21st-century industrial subterranean realm should pass at least once the steel radiation-proof gates of Prague's Bunkr for a sampling of the ongoing Ars Morta industrial series. In April, New York's longtime industrial music innovator Al Margolis performed there, offering his industrial-ambient mix of jazz, world beat and contemporary music known as If Bwana. Further industrial strength was provided by Belgium's Onde, who brought trumpets and strings, while Prague's Schloss Tegal provided the dark aggression associated with the genre.

Slinging a different sort of metal, former Buddy Miles, Temptations and Mitch Ryder bassist Nathaniel Peterson hit Prague with a floating group of blues-metal road warriors known as Twin Dragons. Still on fire from a recent sweat lodge religious experience, during which he was commanded to change his name to Azariah Cane, Peterson again flaunted his knack for replacing proto-metal's Anglo-Celtic magic with his own Mohave-desert-meets-Memphis R&B mysticism.

For fans of world music, the Respect Festival returned to Štvanice Island this summer with a two-day program culled from some of the finest artists on the world-beat circuit today. This year's surprise was Dengue Fever's catchy blend of L.A. farfisa garage rock with Cambodian pop. While the overall program delivered the mix of electric bass and drum kit-meets-global influences the festival is mostly known for, it was Lo Cor de la Plana's bare-bones use of hand drums and primal European folk singing that drew the most animated audience response.

Prague's festival fever continued in the winter with the Stimul and Alternativa Festivals' perennial avant-garde and progressive programs, this year doing a nice job of satisfying existing tastes and prodding listeners in new musical directions.

Still, for many rock music fans, the moment of truth came in September, when the reunited Stooges filled HC Sparta Arena. Reports from Miami had described singer/performer James Osterberg as a mild-mannered, bookish man in his 60s; but when he stripped off his shirt and flailed his spastic, Nijinsky-like Iggy Pop persona to sounds of power punk, the results were rock 'n' roll at its best. The original Stooges' sound was enhanced by Minuteman Mike Watt on bass, who liberated Stooge lead/rhythm guitarist Ron Asheton to drill down to the deepest roots of the band's legendary raw power.

If 2008 was any indication, rock fans should have plenty to choose from in 2009.

- Darrell Jónsson

FILM

Were it not for the Oscars, there would be no use going to see American films, as that gilded statuette is the only thing that stands between us and rampant mediocrity. So, for a brief period each year, usually between January and April, we are confronted with an often astonishing choice of good films, all of which are hoping to compete in Hollywood for an Academy Award.

Last January, with No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd and Michael Clayton fast approaching, you could be forgiven for believing the spin that American cinema had entered a new golden age. But that golden age vanished as soon as the golden Oscar was handed out.

This year looks much the same, with Burn After Reading, Revolutionary Road, Milk and Frost/Nixon slated for early 2009 premieres. Good luck after that. For now, here's a brief look back on the year we're burying.

The best 10 films screened in Prague:

1. The Coen brothers' bleak, epic morality tale, No Country for Old Men

2. Tim Burton's Gothic Sondheim salute, Sweeney Todd

3. Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood

4. Wes Anderson's cool, Chekhovian The Darjeeling Limited

5. Wall-E, the finest Hollywood animation in years

6. Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton

7. Woody Allen's return to form, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

8. Jason Reitman's Juno, finally

9. Isabel Coixet's Elegy, with a luminous Penelope Cruz at its center

10. The brooding Dark Knight

Honorable mentions:

1. Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

2. Bond was back in Quantum of Solace

3. Charlie Wilson's War

4. Del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army

5. Joe Wright's overly faithful Atonement

6. Anton Corbijn's first feature-length film, Control

7. Baz Luhrmann's mythic Australia

8. The Mist - the Bush years metaphorically and meteorologically reimagined

9. The X-Files: I Want to Believe

10. Cronenberg's uneven Eastern Promises

Czech cinema (from best to middling):

1. Petr Zelenka's Karamazovi, rightfully in the running for an Oscar

2. Václav Marhoul's Stephen Crane-inspired Tobruk

3. Sláma's unsatisfying Venkovský učitel, though it had excellent performances from Pavel Liška and Zuzana Bydžovská

4. Strong performances also saved Děti noci

5. Juraj Jakubisko's lush mess, Bathory, a Czech-Slovak-UK co-production

Pointless remakes and salutes to old TV:

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still

2. Bangkok Dangerous

3. Death Race

4. The Women

5. I Am Legend

6. Funny Games

7. Get Smart

Bedrek the halls with reels of folly:

1. Mamma Mia! Never has so much been made of so little

2. Taken

3. Made of Honor

4. The thud of  Jumper

5. John Rambo. This grunt's for hire, obviously

6. Four Christmases. Pulseless cheer

7. Love in the Time of Cholera. Typhoid would be preferable

8. 10,000 BC. Flintstone creationism

And a close race for the bottom:

9. Hank and Mike (myxomatosis never seemed so attractive), and

10. You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Adam Sandler. Enough said

Lastly, as usual, I should make mention of the films that Czech distributors felt weren't as worthy as John Rambo and Hank and Mike for proper screenings: Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, Oliver Stone's W., Shane Meadow's Somers Town, Man on Wire, The Wackness, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Brideshead Revisited and The Savages.

Three films from three important directors only received festival screenings: Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg and Gus van Sant's Paranoid Park. At least van Sant's Milk will open here, and, on that note, see more films scheduled for early 2009 releases on page B8 in The Prague Post's Night & Day entertainment tabloid. Happy New Year to you all!

- Steffen Silvis

FINE ARTS

Another year, another new award for artists. That's the way it's been in the Czech Republic for the past few years, and 2008 was no exception.

This year's new award was the Critics' Award given by the Society of Art Critics and Theoreticians. Slovak artist Laďa Gažiová was selected from a field of 15 finalists - all under 30 years old - as the first winner. Her work, inspired by urban street art and graffiti, incorporates irony, black humor, comics and fragments of text and advertising, among other elements. The prize was a solo show at Galerie kritiků, where the critics' association is based.

The first two years of the Critics' Award will be devoted to painters as a way to honor the talented young painter Vít Soukup, who committed suicide in December 2007 at age 36. Soukup had bemoaned the recent trend of artists' prizes being awarded predominantly to conceptual artists working in new media, feeling that classical disciplines were undervalued.

While most artists' prizes in this country recognize the upcoming generation, one of the most interesting of the newer awards was created by The Artist Has Sense association for artists over 35. Its inaugural edition was in 2007, when it was called the Jiří Kovanda Prize, named for its first spiritual godfather. When it was awarded to Vladimír Skrepl, the torch passed to him, and thus the 2008 Vladimír Skrepl Prize was awarded to Adriena Šimotová, the grande dame of the postwar generation of Czech artists; next year's award will bear her name. The Artist Has Sense panel gathers nominations from 100 curators, critics, arts writers and artists - all under 35 - to compile a list of finalists. A poll is also taken of the best solo and group exhibitions of the year: Michal Pěchouček's show Screen at Galerie Jiří Švestka, and Zvon 2008, curated by Karel Císař.

Another relative newbie among Czech art prizes is the NG 333 Award, established in 2007 by the National Gallery and designated for artists 33 and under, accompanied by a 333,000 Kč prize to purchase the winning work for the National Gallery's permanent collection. Slovak artist Marek Kvetán became the second NG 333 laureate with Carpet, a light sculpture and ordinary carpet literally rolled into one.

The country's best-known and also its longest-running art prize is the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, initiated in 1990 by Václav Havel, the poet and visual artist Jiří Kolář and artist Teodor Pištěk in honor of the influential art historian, theoretician, critic, curator and philosopher Chalupecký (1910-1990). This year's "Finale" show, with an all-male field of six candidates, took place in Brno at the Dům pánů z Kunštátu (House of the Lords of Kunštát). The selection of 32-year-old Radim Labuda reverses one recent trend (the past three laureates have been female), while his project Social Situation: Five Men Tied Up is in keeping with another recent trend of conceptual art with a sociological dimension. Involving five male volunteers and calling upon the expertise of two bondage specialists, the performance piece examines the objectification and gender stereotyping of men - something far less common in contemporary art.

Alongside the official prize this year was a Readers' Choice Award, sponsored by the magazine Reflex. Labuda's project garnered a mere 1 percent of that vote, while Tomáš Moravec's installation of light images made by overhead projectors was picked by 51 percent of participating readers. The youngster of the Chalupecký finalists at 23, Moravec is a name to watch.

Meanwhile, the 2008 Culture Ministry Award for Art and Architecture was nothing short of theater of the absurd. It went to "Blob" designer Jan Kaplický, the internationally renowned architect who has been based in Great Britain since 1968. He declined the prestigious prize for his "exceptional architectural work, with which he has brought attention to Czech architecture both at home and abroad," as it came from the very ministry that has impeded the effort to build his bold, biomorphic National Library building. While the fate of the building has indeed snagged international attention, the notoriety will likely put off other talented architects considering participating in competitions for public buildings here. The ministry plans to use the 300,000 Kč connected with the award for the "development of art" in the Czech Republic.

The past year was also marked by a major reshuffle of art works at Prague's main art institution, the National Gallery. European art of the 19th century has moved from Veletržní Palace to the remodeled St. George Convent inside the Prague Castle complex, allowing Veletržní to sharpen its focus on 20th-century movements and embrace the 21st century. And the National Gallery's collection of Bohemian Baroque has taken up residence in the renovated Schwarzenberg Palace, just outside the castle gates. Now, lovers of European art have only steps instead of tram stops to travel from the Renaissance to early Modernism, with everything housed in three buildings in the vicinity of Prague Castle, which also has its own Picture Gallery containing important examples of European art.

Changes at the Prague City Gallery included reopening the House at the Golden Ring after a yearlong closure. In addition to necessary refurbishment of the medieval building, the gallery got some major upgrades like air-conditioning and new lighting, while preserving architectural details like the original barrel vaulting in the cellar. After being without a permanent general director since April 2007, the gallery named Milan Bufka to the post in October, marking a clear division between the management of the institution and its artistic direction, which will be led by former director Karel Srp.

No new biennial art events were born in 2008, in contrast to their seemingly rampant proliferation a few years back. It was already a crowded on-year with Zvon, the National Gallery's International Triennial of Contemporary Art, and the "anti-biennial" Tina B (a clever acronym for This Is Not Another Biennial). Zvon, organized by the Prague City Gallery and held at the House at the Stone Bell, took place for the sixth time this summer with a new concept: Rather than presenting only up-and-coming artists, the show's curator invited back the artists who had participated in the previous Zvon, with the aim of charting their development since the previous edition. The ITCA (known as the IBCA when it was a biennial event) had been locked in a battle for biennial supremacy with the Prague Biennale, which is set to take place again in 2009.

Photography stepped into the spotlight this year with new galleries opening or reopening: Leica Gallery and Galerie Fotografie Louvre both presented strong exhibition programs. And, in April, the organizers of the annual Art Prague held Prague Foto, a separate fair focusing on photography.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of 2008 was the October opening of DOX, a sprawling multipurpose center for contemporary art and culture in Holešovice. It opened with ambitious plans for a rotation of large and smaller exhibitions to expose local gallery-goers to contemporary trends from abroad, and place Czech and international art in direct confrontation. Until now, Galerie Rudolfinum has been the only major exhibitor of big shows by international artists. So DOX is a promising and welcome addition to the city.

- Mimi Fronczak Rogers

DANCE

The National Theater Ballet enriched its repertoire in 2008 with only two premieres. However, quality presided over quantity. For the first time on Czech stages, ballets by August Bournonville, one of the most popular romantic choreographers of the 19th century, could be seen. The National Theater presented a reconstruction of his original La Sylphide, as well as excerpts from Napoli, in cooperation with the Royal Danish Ballet.

Surprisingly, an old-fashioned romantic tale and approach became a huge success, attracting large audiences; it was also a milestone in Czech ballet history. Although the pre-Cold War Czech ballet was a blend of Italian, French, English and Russian choreographic styles, the Russian style and schooling became dominant after 1948. In La Sylphide/Napoli, Czech dancers and audiences were introduced to the Danish style, which was never explored in the Czech Republic, though popular elsewhere in the ballet world.

A contemporary counterweight to this was the premiere of the double-bill Causa Carmen in June. The first bill was the sensual Santa Says Cut It! by the choreographic duo Uri Ivgi from Israel and Johan Greben from Holland. The second part was the iconic Carmen by one of the most profound contemporary choreographers, Sweden's Mats Ek. 2008 was the year the National Theater Ballet opened Czech ballet to the world even more and promoted its work on a European level. All in all, it was another good year for Petr Zuska's programme choices.

It was a very different situation at the State Opera Ballet, which was established in 2003 after taking over Šmok's Prague Chamber Ballet. Unfortunately, the current repertoire has nothing in common with the original Šmok tradition. The company is still struggling to find its own identity as the National Theater's counterpart, and is unable to deliver programming beyond mere tourist attraction. The only premiere in 2008 was Libor Vaculík's Phantom of the Opera, which, like all Vaculík's ballets, heavily relied on the marketing impact of the title. I cannot conceive why this craftsman is the most performed artist of full-length ballets in the Czech Republic.

Reading the mission statement of the State Opera Ballet, where its artistic director, Pavel Ďumbala, sets a goal of becoming one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the country, and considering that the State Opera is a major Czech opera house, having an even bigger stage and larger auditorium than the National Theater's, it's odd that there's such a yawning gap between the company's potential and its reality.

In terms of dance awards, the most prestigious of accolades, the Thalie, went to Nikola Márová for Odette-Odile at the State Opera and Michal Štípa for Solo for Three at the National Theater. However, this year was the first time modern dancers were also nominated, with nods given to Petr Opavský and Helena Arenbergerová. The Philip Morris Flower Award went to Lukáš Lepold in Ostrava. The Sazka Award, presented annually for new choreography, was given to Lenka Bartůňková for the Library.

The traditional festivals were hit by budget cuts. The cultural funding changes of Milan Richter, head of culture at the Prague City Hall, resulted in much trouble. Still, both Czech Dance Platform and Tanec Praha managed to kick off decent programs.

The final evening of the Czech Dance Platform introduced a very promising new group, 420 People, established by the Czech alumni of Nederlands Dans Theater, Václav Kuneš and Nataša Novotná.

Guest performances by Ballet Preljocaj presented a strong conclusion to the year. Ballet Preljocaj, one of the most creative ballet companies in France, came to Prague as part of the French season, marking the French presidency of the EU in late November.

The approaching Czech EU presidency cannot offer a true equivalent to Ballet Preljocaj this time around. But 2008, regardless of the stumbles that accompanied the flights, proves that Czech dance is on the right path. Perhaps the country's next turn at the presidency (complete, god willing, with a new president in the castle), will prove this to the wider world.

- Lucie Rozmánková