Ballet troupe calls off its China tour

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet of Canada is the latest arts group to cancel a tour to China because of the mysterious illness known as SARS.

The Canadian ballet company had planned to take Mark Godden’s critically acclaimed production of “Dracula” to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou on an 18-day tour, beginning May 25, but heeding a travel advisory issued by Health Canada, a department of the Canadian government, the company has canceled the trip.

“We are canceling because of the current SARS situation in mainland China,” Gerard Roxburgh, Royal Winnipeg’s director of operations, said from company offices on Tuesday. “These things are a year or two in the making, and we just hate to see it go away like this.”

The Canadian company joins a Dublin “Riverdance” company and the BBC Scottish Symphony in canceling upcoming tours to China because of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

“Riverdance” was to have opened the monthlong “Meet in Beijing” arts festival on April 28. The BBC Scottish Symphony was to have started a six-city tour of China, beginning in Beijing on May 21.

Earlier this month, the German chamber orchestra Ensemble Modern arrived in Taiwan to begin a seven-concert tour but returned home without playing a note. Taiwanese government officials had discovered a suspected SARS patient among the passengers on the same airplane with the orchestra. The players and others were ordered into quarantine until doctors were sure that they had escaped infection.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic also has called off nearly a dozen concerts, including programs of “Messiah” highlights scheduled for Friday and Saturday, because of cancellations by some artists and the concern over spreading the illness. Disposable surgical masks have been handed out to audience members at concerts that have not been canceled.

The genetic code of the coronavirus believed to cause the disease was deciphered independently by U.S. and Canadian researchers earlier this week, but researchers said that it would have no immediate effect on controlling the spread of the disease, which is believed to have originated in China and has resulted in 144 deaths worldwide. The Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also have issued a travel advisory recommending that people planning nonessential travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, Hanoi or Singapore postpone their trips until further notice.