Paid too little in lockdown?
Lawsuit against Salzburg Festival
Created: 11/11/2022 4:24 p.m
By: Markus Thiel
Your case will be a topic in court and in parliament: the concert association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus in Salzburg.
© Thomas Koeber
Do cultural institutions only pay for unusual or postponed performances in the manner of landlords?
A model lawsuit by freelance artists is soon to be filed against the Salzburg Festival.
Apparently, German houses are also among the culprits.
It's not over yet.
Even if the stages are allowed to play in front of a full house again.
But the lockdown period continues to affect the accounts of many freelance artists.
Some are still waiting for fair compensation payments after productions have been canceled or postponed far into the future.
The Salzburg Festival plays a particularly inglorious role, at least that's how the initiators of a model lawsuit see it.
"Practically nobody else has done it as badly and dishonestly as Salzburg," says tenor Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke.
On Friday, he and his fellow campaigners in Vienna made their planned lawsuit public.
The Austrian "Lawyers' Petition for Freelancers", the local "Florestan Initiative" and the Munich organization "Stand Up for Art" are involved.
Your criticism is sparked by the example of the concert association of the Vienna State Opera Choir.
A private association that is regularly engaged in Salzburg and calls in members of an extra choir for large projects.
They would only have received advance payments for preliminary samples.
For the canceled summer projects, however, the contracts were terminated without compensation, and this under pressure from the festival.
According to Ablinger-Sperrhacke, 60 members of the Philharmonia Choir also received nothing after an opera production was overturned.
Paid ten million euros too little?
Salzburg has rejected the allegations in writing.
It was "the only major festival in the world to take place in the summer of 2020, giving work to hundreds of artists".
In addition, it was possible to catch up on almost all of the productions planned for 2020.
Ablinger's sledgehammer doesn't accept that.
"The festival presented itself as the savior of art in Corona times," he told our newspaper.
"They changed their program arbitrarily, for example adding a completely new 'Così fan tutte' to the program without employing a single singer from the originally planned 'Magic Flute' or 'Don Giovanni'." Overall, he suspects an additional payment of ten million euros.
After all, there is another way, as the tenor emphasizes.
For example, he advised the ensemble of the Seefestspiele in Mörbisch in Burgenland not to sign any termination agreements.
The result: The artists received compensation for the summer of 2020.
What outsiders easily overlook: Even if freelance artists were consoled with later projects, not a single euro goes into their accounts at first - although they still have to pay for their daily lives.
In the case of the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, the plaintiffs are also bothered by unequal treatment.
The bottom line is that the extra choristers would only have received 50 percent of the sum of their colleagues.
"That is simply illegal, the principle of equality was violated," says Ablinger-Sperrhacke.
Salzburg have "installed an absurd dumping system" here.
The initiators received support from the SPÖ, which made a request to the National Council.
Criticism also of practice in Dresden, Frankfurt and Berlin
But the culprits are obviously not only in Austria.
The Dresden Semper Opera, the Frankfurt Opera or the Berlin Opera Foundation have not exactly behaved creditably towards the freelancers, criticizes Wolfgang Schwaninger, tenor and lawyer.
Berlin, for example, only paid 25 percent and also introduced “an arbitrary cap” of 10,000 euros per season.
Which means: the more commitments were agreed, the lower the remuneration per commitment.
Dresden simply canceled productions, although games were allowed there, reports Schwaninger.
And Baden-Württemberg behaved “very cleverly” from the point of view of the state.
There was a compensation of 60 percent from a social fund, which at first glance seems generous.
also read
Munich: “The bike.
Cult object - design object" in the Pinakothek der Moderne - a must for cyclists!
Action and farewell: "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"
For Schwaninger, the Frankfurt Opera behaved “like a landlord.”
At first, director Bernd Loebe didn't want to pay anything, only under pressure could up to 30 percent be negotiated.
"So you let yourself be celebrated as the opera house of the year and on the other hand you leave the free ones hanging." And this against the background that a door down the Frankfurter Schauspiel behaved much more openly towards artists without permanent commitments.
Unlike in Austria with its more centralized system, freelancers in Germany with its patchwork of countries find it much more difficult to assert their interests.
However, there is a "ray of hope" for Schwaninger: The EU Commission has allowed the self-employed to conduct collective negotiations and thus act as a kind of bargaining party.
"Which means that it is possible to enforce rights through labor disputes - also on the stages."
All of this shows that the lockdowns have not been processed financially and legally - especially since the contracts still contain questionable regulations.
Precisely because the problems of freelancers are hardly noticed in the cultural industry that has started up again (which is only right for the theaters and opera houses), they now want to make their voices heard more.
The only question is how the cultural institutions will behave now.
Will Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke ever be engaged again at the Salzburg Festival?
"Certainly, because a new festival tour will be installed there," he says.
"I would not bet that the current one will continue for long if it has a model lawsuit on its hands and a parliamentary question."