Just in: Lyric calls off Mazzoli opera
NewsMessage from Chicago’s Lyric Opera:
CHICAGO (1/5/2022) — Anthony Freud, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s general director, president & CEO, announced today that the company’s production of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s chamber opera Proving Up, planned for January 22-30, 2022 at the Goodman’s Owen Theatre, has been postponed.
“This difficult decision is based on our current understanding of the ever-changing public health situation, with the goal of keeping the safety of our company, our audiences, and our artists as our overriding priority,” said Freud. “As always, we have benefited enormously from the advice of Dr. Emily Landon, the epidemiologist providing ongoing consultation to Lyric throughout this pandemic period.” Rehearsals for Proving Up were set to begin this week.
Lyric plans to reschedule Proving Up in a future season.
What a tragedy! Time for the Missy Solemnis!
Just because Emily Landon is a professor at the University of Chicago does not mean she is the expert on where Covid will be in a few weeks. By Jan 22 things may have improved! Since everyone has to be masked and vaccinated it seems like overkill.
Still, they probably have a rehearsal problem even if reported cases themselves come down in the near future.
Curious as to whether or not Lyric is able to claim force majeure in this case, as they are not being shut down and are not saying they are unable to mount the production due to COVID. They are choosing to cancel/postpone.
Note to the editor: “to call off” means “to cancel”, not “to postpone” (which is actually the case here). I understand it sounds more dramatic, but it is misleading. Obviously another case of hyperbolic clickbait syndrome (a common disease here, induced by the ever growing need for advertising revenue).
This might be Canadian usage. In the UK, however, it can mean both.
Respectfully sorry, that is not the case as shown by this British dictionary (Cambridge). “to decide that a planned event, especially a sports event, will not happen, or to end an activity because it is no longer useful or possible…” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/call-sth-off