WHEN something happens once on the cultural graph, it may be interesting; twice, it's significant.
Hard on the heels of the keenly anticipated Northern Ireland Opera work for young people out this spring, Nobody/Somebody, comes a commission for a new children's opera from the Belfast Ensemble.
The first new opera deals with the horribly topical subject of homelessness among young people. It boasts a score by Neil Martin which sounded ace when a bit was aired last year, a libretto by Fionnuala Kennedy with young people's real language (including swearing).
Kennedy says it's inspired by the Take Back the City campaign "asking for social housing to be built on vacant land to help families".
A young chorus and the Ulster Youth Orchestra will be involved in a projected tour. The theme of Conor Mitchell's new opera will be dystopia and, one of the current buzzwords, sustainability.
What's great is that opera will reach the next generation. As Pavarotti said, if you don't provide a musical education for children "something fundamental is actually being taken from them".
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NEW programmes are springing up like early bulbs. Conflict features, ours and other people's. So to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Brian Irvine is writing a work that's part opera (new opera no. 3, people) and part activism.
We live in a tough world and Eastside Arts has a new work, Three Pay Cheques Away, about poverty.
Rosemary Jenkinson's new drama with Kabosh at the Lyric Theatre, Silent Trade, examines human trafficking.
There is also an exciting reworking of Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric for fans of the star-crossed love story.
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WITH all these serious themes we may need distraction.
The Grand Opera House weighs in with Sister Act, the 20th anniversary production of The History of the Troubles (Accordin' to My Da) with Grimes and McKee and the amazing Girl from the North Country.
Tinderbox, who understand the European tradition, will present their take on Ionesco's dark fable, Rhino. Plus there's a Barber of Seville for one night only, February 15, at The MAC.
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NEW isn't always totally new, of course. The exhibition running at The MAC until March 26 is more a question of back to the future.
The 10 artists showcased in New Exits demonstrate a kind of reinvention of the art of painting. There is realism, cowboy imagery, different abstract art.
Of the painters here, all trained at Ulster University's art college, I particularly enjoyed the work of Juste Bernotaite. Her big, highly coloured, canvases contain an urban energy. Patrick Hickey's rather beautiful homoerotic depictions of youth have inevitably a touch of Hockney about them. There is longing, sadness, a looking for home. And Megan Burns's pastel puzzles are beautiful.
Happy New Year, culture vultures.
