But general manager and artistic director George Steel "said that this season City Opera expects to balance its budget for the first time in years. 'The company is light-years ahead of where we were last year at this time,' he said. 'There are still significant challenges, but we are working very hard to address them.'"...

"There was no sight of a light being turned off and on at the preview opening of the fourth Artes Mundi prize exhibition in Cardiff. This was big subject art tackling subjects from post-communist social order to consumerism and globalisation. The prize of £40,000 is one of the most lucrative in the world and the biggest in the UK."...

"Caravaggiomania ... suggests that the whole classical tradition in which Michelangelo was steeped is becoming ever more foreign and therefore seemingly less germane, even to many educated people." Meanwhile, Caravaggio "exemplifies the modern antihero, a hyperrealist whose art is instantly accessible."...