Lots of cheap tickets: The economy tanked, and tickets to everything were magically available at short notice, at cut rates. Example A: The Metropolitan Opera continued its yearlong offer of same-day $20 tickets in the orchestra section, offered many 2007-08 operas on television here at Thirteen/WNET, continued its live HD broadcasts to movie theaters, and opened up an online lottery for $25 tickets for unsold seats in the Orchestra and Grand Tier sections.

Lots of cheap tickets, part B: I never thought I would say this, but now that it’s suddenly cool to be a spendthrift, I’m not sure if I like being part of a large crowd that until recently looked down on us lifelong cheapsters. Last week, I went to the Saint James Theatre to get tickets to Gypsy so I could see Patti LuPone one more time before the show was set to close for good. I paid a very good price for excellent seats—without trying hard at all, or breaking the law. New York is not an easy city to live or work in. I had become attached to the struggle associated with finding concert tickets I could afford. Now everything is a struggle. And it’s just wrong that Gypsy is closing.  
Best brass blast: Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, movement 1, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, November 2008: an A-flat unison opening that nailed the audience to the wall, and those fist-pump offbeats from Dudamel. Entertaining side show, if your ears weren’t working properly: Dudamel’s bouncy, curly hair as he jumped about on the podium.

Best Broadway moment by a TV personality: Will & Grace star Sean Hayes’s turn as the Devil in City Center’s Encores presentation of Damn Yankees in July. The exact moment? Hayes’s exhilarating opening-night “Those Were the Good Old Days,” as he peered out from the edge of the stage into the audience cheering his perfectly timed comic delivery and unexpectedly virtuosic piano playing, and his hesitation as he visibly pondered whether to improvise some more. Yes, playing live in a Broadway theater doesn’t pay much compared with television, but it’s definitely more exciting.

The opening of Le Poisson Rouge: Enough said. Probably way too cool for those of us who love and labor far from hipness, but the chance to hear cutting-edge musicians while imbibing alcohol is a variety of New York Cool not to be passed up.

Bach, still: Johann Sebastian Bach never goes out of style. Countertenor David Daniels’s heady “Schlummert ein” from cantata 82 on his new CD of Bach arias and cantatas is a keeper, and German violinist Julia Fischer’s new album with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields is consistently excellent, too (that impossibly sweet tone!).

My favorite tenor, 2008 edition: Jonas Kaufmann: so much better than the Jonas Brothers, in every way. Kaufmann’s new CD “Romantic Arias” is a must-have, and his tortured Don José pretty much obliterated the normally compelling Anna Caterina Antonacci on Decca’s recent Carmen DVD.

Alex Ross: The New Yorker’s classical-music critic, blogger, and author of The Rest Is Noise won one award after another this year, proving that people in positions of authority do know the difference between good and bad writing about classical music. An embarrassment of awards riches, but well deserved.

Ewa Podles: In the fall, the contralto who could also pass as a tenor or soprano came, saw, and conquered New York, with her Cieca in La Gioconda at the Metropolitan Opera—and that was up against Deborah Voigt in the title role and the Laura of Olga Borodina, neither of them exactly chopped liver. Podles capped off the Ponchielli run with two sparkling recitals of Respighi with the Chamber Music Society Lincoln Center. I’ve just checked her schedule at operabase.com, and if you need a quick Podles warm-up in February-March, head down to Atlanta, where you can catch her Azucena in Atlanta Opera’s Il Trovatore. Yum!