AT THE OPERA: Normally, General Director and CEO Keith Cerny does the writing for the Dallas Opera on theaterjones.com with his monthly Off the Cuff columns. But to wrap up the year, Artistic Director Jonathan Pell has picked up the pen. And he’s got a lot to highlight – from new technology to new talent. But he reserves much of his ink for the story of Aida and how soprano Latonia Moore returned to town to wow the crowds.

ALT ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: Our local alt weeklies have weighed in on the North Texas albums that they couldn’t stop listening to in 2012. Topping Fort Worth Weekly‘s list is Skeleton Coast’s self-titled debut. “Skeleton Coast resonates as fully as it does by mirroring the human experience: euphony and cacophony, chaos and order, war and peace,” Anthony Mariani writes. Meanwhile, Dallas Observer music writers have compiled a list of the best 15 North Texas releases (in no particular order).

QUOTABLE: “The truth is, the Bilbao effect is largely a myth. Frank Gehry’s museum alone didn’t turn around that city. It capped decades of civic renewal. Flashy, even brilliant buildings rarely rejuvenate neighborhoods or guarantee crowds and cash just by virtue of their design, any more than restoring disused rail tracks guarantees the High Line. Sadly, museums, like cities, have squandered fortunes praying to this false idol. They still do.”

– New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman on the new expansion of the art museum in Amsterdam, comparing it to the urban uplift provided by the Guggenheim Bilbao.