Abbado, Blaming Health Problem, Cancels Plans for Japan Concerts Citing ill health, the Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has canceled plans to conduct a series of concerts in Japan this fall with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra - including one at an inflatable concert hall in Matsushima that was to be dedicated to a region recovering from the 2011 earthquake. Mr. Abbado, who has led Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Vienna State Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic, did not specify what the health problem was. In a statement he said, "I deeply regret that we have no choice but to cancel all our concerts in Tokyo due to reasons of my health." He had cancer in 2000, and had to withdraw from a planned Carnegie Hall appearance in 2007. The Lucerne Festival Orchestra will cancel the four concerts it had planned to play in October at Suntory Hall in Tokyo. The new mobile, inflatable concert hall in Matsushima - called the Lucerne Festival Ark Nova - will open at the end of September, but Mr. Abbado's concert, planned for Oct. 12, will be canceled. The festival said that a new program would be announced.