Because of Richard Lugner

Why manager Helmut Werner is not at the Opera Ball

Dynamic duo: artist manager Helmut Werner and folk song giant Heino.

(Bild: APA-PictureDesk/Starpix)

For a long time, artist manager Helmut Werner made a big secret of whether he was going to the Opera Ball or not. Now.... he's not going this year. He reveals the reason in Krone and is more than surprised that Jacqueline Lugner is actually supposed to dance at the ball.

Is she coming or not? It was Jacqueline Lugner's stepmother Simone Lugner who spoiled the fact that she would be attending the Opera Ball. Apparently with a star guest. Following in the footsteps of her father, the gossip king Richard Lugner. The protagonist herself, of course, remains silent.

Opera Ball King Richard Lugner
One person who will be staying away from the Opera Ball this year is artist manager Helmut Werner. The intimate and string-puller behind folk song giant Heino: "But there's a reason for that. I'm not doing it primarily because I don't want to do it out of respect for Richard Lugner alone. He has achieved and done a great deal, and at the Opera Ball he did far more than just act in his own PR. After all, he was also one of the donors," says the Wahl-Kitzbühler to Krone. For next year, "things are looking very different again," he adds.

"But not this year. I'm also thinking of the words of Richard Lugner himself when he said last year about Heino (note: his wife Hannelore died in 2023): 'He's in his year of mourning and shouldn't go! So I just can't imagine Jacqueline wanting to go to the ball by hook or by crook," says Werner. He doesn't want it to be understood as a side blow, because after all, the same could also be said about Simone Lugner and the year of mourning, but not only fans of the Opera Ball can clearly read between the lines here . . .