Edgar Baitzel, the artistic director of the L.A. Opera, told the Los Angeles Times, "The reasons are simply budgetary. It was not possible to secure the additional funding that we needed to make this premiere work in the '05-'06 season. We are working on putting this strategy together and hope to have something to announce in a few weeks." Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth, most recently on Broadway in Stephen Schwartz's Wicked, was set to star in the opera's title role. The opera was to feature music by Unsuk Chin and a libretto by award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang. Director Baitzel also told the L.A. paper, "Chin is a great composer. She is working on the opera. She's doing her part and she's on time. But we'll probably have to do it in the 2007-08 season."

Kristin Chenoweth, who received a Tony nomination for her work as Glinda in Stephen Schwartz's Wicked, made her New York theatrical debut opposite Bill Irwin in a production of Molière's Scapin and followed that with a role in Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier. Roles in Off-Broadway's A New Brain, the Broadway comedy Epic Proportions and the City Center Encores! productions of Strike Up the Band and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever ensued. Chenoweth won her Tony for her performance as Sally Brown in the Broadway bow of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Among Chenoweth's upcoming films are "The Pink Panther," "Bewitched," "Asphalt Beach" and the animated Disney picture "Rapunzel Unbraided."