(Credit: Oper Köln official website)

The Oper Köln has announced that it has decided to cancel the rest of its 2020-21 season.

“Together with the Mayor Henriette Reker, Head of Culture Susanne Laugwitz-Aulbach and the directors of the Köln Philharmonic, the Köln stages and the Gürzenich Orchestra, it was decided to end the 2020-21 season due to the current pandemic situation and lack of planning in the cultural institutions,” said the opera house in a statement on its official website.

The Oper Köln thus joins the Semperoper Dresden and Theater Bonn in ending its 2020-21 season.

The German Parliament has adopted changes to the Infection Protection Act, providing the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s federal government the power to impose stricter COVID-19 measures without consultation of the federal states. Large parts of Germany are deeply in the red zone with the seven-day incidence rate above the threshold value of 100, and thus must go into lockdown.

Cultural venues and leisure facilities must stay closed until the seven-day incidence rate drops below 100 for five consecutive days. The new legislation thus adds to the greater uncertainty over any prospective reopening of the cultural venues in Germany.

The seven-day incidence in Köln currently stands at 214.6.