NEW YORK — Coldplay was the hottest iTunes album download this year: Its “Viva la Vida” was crowned the best-selling album of 2008, while Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love” was named the top-selling single.

Coldplay’s CD has sold more than 2 million copies since its release in June, and has sold more than 500,000 copies digitally _ most of which was through iTunes, according to the band’s representative. ITunes does not release its sales figures, its spokesman said in releasing its list on Monday.

Jack Johnson’s “Sleep Through the Static” was the No. 2 selling album, while the soundtrack to the film “Juno,” Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” and Sara Bareilles’ “Little Voice” rounded out the iTunes top 5. Two more film soundtracks were in the top ten _ “Once” and “Across the Universe” _ while Jason Mraz’ “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things,” OneRepublic’s “Dreaming Out Loud” and Leona Lewis’ “Spirit” rounded it out.

Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” sold 3.2 million digitally, according to her label, J Records. According to iTunes, the title track of Coldplay’s album was its No. 2 most downloaded track, followed by “Low” by Flo Rida (featuring T-Pain), Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and Rihanna’s “Disturbia.”

Rihanna also made the top 10 singles with “Don’t Stop the Music,” while “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne and Static Major, “No Air” by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown, Sara Bareilles’ “Love Song” and Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” also made iTunes top 10 downloaded singles list

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The March 15 concert will feature 26 scenes evoking “historic classic productions and high points in the company’s past,” the opera said in a statement.

Fans will have a chance to recall “legendary moments we all wish we had heard, and reliving some whose memory we treasure. It’s sure to be fascinating,” said James Levine, music director.

Headlining the cast of current stars will be legendary tenor Domingo, who will also be marking the 40th year since his debut.

“We would like this to be a celebration of both the music and the rich theatrical history of the old and new Met,” Met General Manager Peter Gelb said.

The United Nations inaugurated a refurbished meeting room, the gift of Spain, at its European headquarters on Tuesday.

Formerly known simply as Room XX, the new Human Rights and Alliance of Civilisations Chamber is certain to be a highlight of visits to the U.N.’s art-deco building near Lake Geneva.

The floor and walls of the circular chamber are carpeted with champagne-colored material.

But it is the ceiling that is really striking.

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Mortier, hired in February 2007 as general manager and artistic director starting in 2009-10, quit Friday because the company didn’t have enough money to finance his plans.

In a memo to City Opera staff, first reported by MusicalAmerica.com, City Opera chairwoman Susan Baker announced that Kaiser will assist. He became president of Washington’s Kennedy Center in 2001 after running the American Ballet Theater and London’s Royal Opera in the 1990s.

“While New York City Opera’s immediate plans have changed, our path and optimism for the future have not,” Baker wrote in the memo, which the company released Wednesday. “With guidance from Michael Kaiser, one of America’s leading arts management advisers, our board and staff are working to identify new leadership and to craft a plan for the 2009-2010 season and beyond — one that respects City Opera’s past while initiating a creative and entrepreneurial vision for the future. We remain committed to our core values of innovation, accessibility, the nurturing of young singers.”

Dev Patel, left, and Anil Kapoor in Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.”

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Pumpkins by the dozen, their orange faces carved and sculpted into forms mysterious and spooky. But these are no run-of-the-mill jack-o-lanterns - the annual pumpkin patch is partly an art gallery and partly a Whitmanesque “barbaric yawp,” the result of a remarkable teacher’s efforts to shove his students out of their comfort zones.

“It’s a rite of passage,” said Kahn, 80, who has taught art and design at Stanford since 1949. “Some of them are tortured by it. Others are waiting with bated breath for the open door.”

For nearly half a century Kahn has torn his design students out of their studies of art, color and form once each year and handed them a lowly squash and a knife with a few simple instructions. It has to be a lantern. And it has to say “boo.”