The BBC has announced that, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, this year’s Last Night of the Proms will no longer take place. Similarly, tonight’s BBC Prom has also been cancelled.
The traditional closing event of the BBC Proms was due to take place at the Royal Albert Hall at 7.15pm on Saturday and would have been broadcast on both BBC TV and Radio 3. Conducted by Dalia Stasevska, it would have featured soprano Lise Davidsen and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloists. Stasevska conducted the Last Night in 2020 which, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, took place in an empty hall.
Tonight’s Prom would have seen the Philadelphia Orchestra perform works by Rachmaninov, Chausson, Saint-Saëns and Price, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The same orchestra’s Prom yesterday was curtailed to just a performance of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ and the National Anthem.
Though in both 1997 and 2001, the programme of the Last Night of the Proms was altered to reflect recent tragic news events, on this occasion the decision was taken to cancel the event entirely as a mark of respect.