Seeking to plug a $4-billion budget deficit, Virginia legislators are considering cutting funds for and then eliminating the state’s Commission for the Arts, says the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A House of Delegates proposal to be debated in Richmond on Thursday would halve the commission’s $4.4-million appropriation in fiscal 2011, which begins July 1, and eliminate it the following year. Losing state funds could imperil federal stimulus money allocated to the commission, which issues grants to hundreds of Virginia cultural organizations.

In other arts news, New York’s Metropolitan Opera will raise ticket prices for the forthcoming 2010-11 season, the first such across-the-board hike in four years, The New York Times reports.

The average cost of individual and subscription tickets will go up 11 and 6 percent, respectively, with the price of top seats rising from $375 to $420.

Also, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum rode a resurgent stock market to financial strength in the last six months of 2009, reports the Boston Business Journal.

The venerable art museum recorded $12.8-million in investment income from July 1 to Dec. 31 after losing $15-million in the previous fiscal year. The Gardner also collected $25.6-million in grants and gifts in the second half of 2009, compared to $33-million for the 12 months before.

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