Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke

Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (born 1967 in Zell am See, Salzburg) is an Austrian operatic tenor.

Ablinger-Sperrhacke studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna with Gerhard Kahry (voice) and Kurt Equiluz (Lied/oratorio).

After first fest-contracts at Landestheater Linz (1993–1995), Theater Basel (fest-contract during season 1995/96, afterwards as guest singer till 1999/2000) and Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich (1996–1998) he has worked as a free-lance artist since 1998.

In 1997 he made his début at the Opéra National de Paris and subsequently was invited to do roles such as Goro in Madama Butterfly, Monostatos as well as First Armed Man in The Magic Flute, Capito in Mathis der Maler, Shabby Peasant in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Mime in Der Ring des Nibelungen and also participated in the world premiere of Philippe Manoury's opera K....

At the Glyndebourne Festival Opera he sang in more than 130 performances including roles such as Vašek in The Bartered Bride, Reverend Horace Adams in Peter Grimes, Arnalta in L'incoronazione di Poppea, the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel – the two last also semistaged at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, Tanzmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos and Podestà in La finta giardiniera.

Further important engagements:

Concerts: at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at Philharmonie am Gasteig, in São Paulo (Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde), Gurre-Lieder in Melbourne, Bergen, Lille, Hannover, Gothenburg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Saint-Denis-Festival, Royal Festival Hall, Semperoper, and Helsinki Festival, Das Rheingold (Loge) at Leeds Town Hall, Southbank Centre, The Lowry/Manchester, The Sage/Newcastle, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham and Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Ablinger-Sperrhacke has worked with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Simone Young, Daniel Barenboim, Ingo Metzmacher, Franz Welser-Möst, Kent Nagano, Marc Albrecht, Philippe Jordan, Emmanuelle Haïm, James Conlon, Christian Thielemann, Jeffrey Tate, Robin Ticciati, Hartmut Haenchen, Antonio Pappano, Fabio Luisi, Susanna Mälkki and Vladimir Jurowski.

During the Coronavirus pandemic Ablinger-Sperrhacke lobbied for compensation-payments for freelance artists, the safe reopening of cultural institutions and respecting the freedom of the arts.

On 05.05.2020, in a press-conference together with cultural politicians of the Austrian opposition, Thomas Drozda (SPÖ) and Sepp Schellhorn (NEOS), he criticized the lack of compensations for freelancers and that the opening perspectives for cultural venues are insufficient and violating the freedom of the arts.

Public pressure initiated by this press conference and ongoing criticism from other branches of the arts, such as the cabaret scene, led to the resignation of Austrian Secretary of State for Culture, Ulrike Lunacek ten days later.

Her successor, Andrea Mayer, developed, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the opening-steps for the Salzburg Festival which then became a role-model for theatre-openings world-wide.

Co-founder of the Austrian initiative "Anwaltspetition für Freischaffende/Lawyer's Petition for free-lance-artists" together with Elisabeth Kulman, Tomasz Koniecny, Georg Nigl and lawyer Georg Streit, among others, he demanded a round-table for the compensations for free-lance-artists in April 2020, which took place on April 27 with representatives of the government and the biggest cultural institutions in Austria.

In June 2020 he helped negotiate the compensations at the Austrian State-theaters (Bundestheater) together with lawyer Georg Streit, Georg Nigl and Ulrike Kuner (IG Freie Theater)

From autumn 2020 onwards he intensified his cultural-political engagement in Bavaria and Germany.

Through an interview he helped launch a discussion about artistic freedom in Bavaria and Germany as well and in November 2020 co-founded the German initiative "Aufstehen für die Kunst" ("Standing Up for Arts"), together with Christian Gerhaher, Hansjörg Albrecht and Kevin Conners, Ensemble-speaker of the Bavarian State-Operahouse, which is supported by international artists unions, such as the French Unisson, the Spanish ALE and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).

He co-organized 2 press-conferences and gave several interviews on the matter.

In March 2021 together with other co-founders of "Aufstehen für die Kunst", as well as Anne-Sophie Mutter and Thomas Hengelbrock, he filed a Popular Lawsuit ("Popularklage") to the Bavarian Constitutional Court against the undifferentiated closures of cultural venues in Bavaria.

This lawsuit is still undecided.

With 22 other applicants he filed an urgent application to the Bavarian Administrative Court, which was rejected in April 2021.

In April 2021 he also participated in an urgent application to the German Constitutional Court against the German "emergency-break- law" ("Notbremsegesetz") ordering the complete closure of theaters, operahouses and concert-halls at a 7-day incidence-level of more than 100 Coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

This urgent application was postponed and then not considered by the Constitutional Court, as due to rapidly sinking incidence-levels and the successive re-openings of cultural venues the concerned fundamental rights were no longer directly affected by this law.

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