Ara Berberian In 1963 he was promoted from the chorus to singing roles with the NYCO, beginning with Leandro in "The Love for Three Oranges" in April of that year. He sang several more roles with NYCO through 1967, including Collatinus in "The Rape of Lucretia", the Commandant in "Don Giovanni", the Major-Domo in "Capriccio", Osmin in Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio", and Tiresias in "Oedipus rex" among others. He later returned to the NYCO in 1977 to create the role of Gene Henderson in the world premiere in Leon Kirchner's "Lily". From 1965-1968 Berberian was committed to the San Francisco Opera,
Robert Radford to another source) Hagen in "Götterdämmerung". He was then engaged with the Grand Opera Syndicate at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and he was successively engaged by Thomas Beecham in his productions at various venues, including Covent Garden, Drury Lane and His Majesty's Theatre. In Beecham's production of Wagner's "Ring cycle" he again played Fasolt, opposite the Fafnir of the younger Norman Allin, who succeeded him as Britain's foremost bass. Among his best-known roles were Mephistopheles (Gounod's "Faust"), Osmin ("Il Seraglio"), Sarastro ("The Magic Flute"), the Father (Charpentier's "Louise"), "Ivan the Terrible" and "Boris Godunov" (title role), which he