Born Sotirios Papoulkas, he left Greece already for his vocal studies with Josef Metternich in Köln, and spent the rest of
his life in Germany.
He made his debut in 1968 as Alfredo in Flensburg, where he stayed for two years. 1970–73 at the Vienna Volksoper and
1971–87 at the Munich Gärtnerplatztheater, 1974–77 also in Nürnberg. Guest appearances: at the Vienna
Staatsoper between 1977 and 1979 (3 times Almaviva, no less than 21 times Ernesto), in Bologna (Don Ottavio, 1982), in Dortmund,
Athens, Strasbourg, Philadelphia and Toronto.
His repertory also included Nemorino, Edgardo, Ferrando, Idamante, Tamino, Nicolai's Fenton, Lindoro, Lenskij, Rinuccio and
Italienischer Sänger.
From 1990, he was a professor of singing at the Folkwang Academy of Music in Essen. Throughout his career, he gave guest
performances at the Greek National Opera in Athens, where he last appeared in 2000 as Tamino. His daughter Antigone
Papoulkas (with re-Grecized "ou") was an interesting, light-voiced mezzosoprano.
Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens; reference 2: Greek
National Opera archives
