(Credit: © Raimond Spekking/Wikimedia Commons)

Oper Köln canceled the Dec. 28 performance of Walter Braunfels’ rarely performed opera “Die Vögel” due to multiple sick cases in the opera house. The company did not specify the nature of the illness.

The opera was set to star Young Woo Kim, Joshua Bloom, Bjarni Thor Kristinsson, Wolfgang Stefan Schwaiger, Gloria Rehm, Anna Malesza-Kutny, Lotte Verstaen, Mariola Mainka, Lisa Katarina Zimmermann, Constanze Rottler, Franka Wagner, Cordula Hack, Eva Budde, Artjom Korotkov, Michail Kapadoukakis, Heiko Köpke, Kevin Moreno, Andrew Penning, Christoph Westerkamp, Lucas Singer, Sung Jun Cho, and Dustin Drosdziok.

Gabriel Feltz was signed on to conduct a production by Nadja Loschky, with set design by Ulrich Leitner.

Germany is undergoing a powerful COVID-19 wave driven mainly by the Delta variant, as the new and aggressive Omicron variant is still taking hold. The seven-day incidence in Germany currently stands at 215.6. The Robert Koch Institute has warned that the real situation might not be assessed correctly due to the Christmas holidays.