Speaking to the Associated Press earlier this week, Gelb said, "We were always relying upon the Chinese to be able to provide us with financial guarantees that would cover all the costs of the tour. I guess in the end it became it became more than they had bargained for."
The plan had been for the company to bring its 2006 production of Tan Dun's The First Emperor — which is about Qin Shi Huang, the general and monarch who first united the country in the third century B.C. — to Beijing in conection with the 2008 Olympics.