Ara Berberian (Armenian: Արա Բերբերյան, May 14, 1930 – February 21, 2005) was an American bass and actor who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and musicals from the early 1960s until his retirement from the stage in 1997.
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.
From 1965 to 1968 Berberian was committed to the San Francisco Opera, making his debut with the company in the title role of Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle with Beverly Wolff as Judith and Gerhard Samuel conducting on May 25, 1965.
Other roles he sang with the company included Alvise Badoero in La Gioconda, Biterolf in Wagner's Tannhäuser, The Bonze in Madama Butterfly, both Charles V and the Friar in Don Carlos, Ferrando in Il trovatore, Inspector in The Visitation, Narbal in Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens, Orest's tutor in Elektra, Pimen in Boris Godunov, A rag picker in Louise, Samuel in Un ballo in maschera, The Speaker in The Magic Flute, the Wise Man in Christophe Colomb, and Man in the United States premiere of Kurt Weill's Royal Palace.
Some of his more notable roles at the Met included Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur, Bonze in The Nightingale, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Geronte in Manon Lescaut, Hermann in Tannhäuser, Mustafà in L'italiana in Algeri, the Old Hebrew in Samson and Dalila, Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Rocco in Fidelio, Sparafucile in Verdi's Rigoletto, Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi, Titurel in Parsifal, and Zacharie in Le prophète among many others.
In 1971 he collaborated with Alfredo Antonini in the role of Uriah in the premiere performance of Ezra Laderman's opera And David Wept for CBS Television.
Nearly a decade earlier in 1964, he also collaborated with Antonini in CBS's televised adaptation of Hector Berlioz's sacred oratorio L'enfance du Christ in the role of Father.