(Credit: Mannheim.de / Theater Dortmund official website)

Nationaltheater Mannheim has announced that it will shut down until the end of January 2021.

“After the federal and state governments decided to extend the lockdown to January 10, 2021, the city of Mannheim and the Mannheim National Theater have agreed to cease performances until January 31, 2021,” says the statement on the company’s official website.

“This decision was necessary and correct in the sense of a longer-term planning security. January 11 2021 is only an interim point in the overall assessment of the pandemic situation. In order to counteract the operational burden caused by the small-scale decisions, we decided, with a heavy heart, to cease performances until January 31, 2021, ” said the managing director Marc Stefan Sickel.

Additionally, Theater and Oper Dortmund have also announced closure until the end of January 2021, according to the decision of North-Rhine Westphalia authorities.

The Nationaltheater Mannheim and Theater Dortmund thus join the long list of German theaters and opera houses that have decided to shut down until February or March 2021. Per sources of German newspaper Der Spiegel, the government and state authorities are admitting the failure of the light lockdown and are willing to impose a much harder lockdown to avoid further spread of COVID-19 novel coronavirus.