(Credit: AE Ebener / Staatsoper Berlin official website)

The Staatsoper unter der Linden and Komische Oper Berlin have announced closures until at least June 2021.

Additionally, the Staatsoper unter der Linden has canceled productions of Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz” and Jörg Widmann’s “Babylon” in June, as well as Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in July 2021. The opera house stated that those productions could no longer be performed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The Komische Oper stated that it might perform its production of Johann Strauss’ operetta “Der Zigeunerbaron” in the second half of May 2021, as a part of the Testing Pilot Project of the Senate of Berlin, if epidemiological conditions allow.

Berlin’s biggest opera house the Deutsche Oper Berlin remains closed until further notice.

Germany is undergoing a fierce third wave of COVID-19 driven by the highly infectious and aggressive new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Frustrated with ongoing negotiations with the federal states with little result, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to amend the Infection Protection Act in order to take charge of the pandemic throughout the whole territory of Germany. Per the law, a universal emergency brake will be applied on the whole territory of the country, and federal states will have to comply.