After making his Broadway debut in Redhead (1959), he went on to create the roles of Adolph and the Ziegfeld Tenor in Jule Styne's Funny Girl (1963) in which he was a featured soloist with Barbra Streisand.
His greatest success with the NYCO was his creation of the quintuple role of Voltaire/Pangloss/Businessman/Governor/Gambler in the 1982 revival of Leonard Bernstein's Candide which was directed by Hal Prince and filmed for national broadcast on PBS's Live from Lincoln Center.
[6] Other larger parts he excelled in included the Prologue in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw (1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1978);[7] Arbace in Mozart's Idomeneo (1974, 1975);[8] Eisenstein in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus (1976, 1986);[9] the Devil in Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (1977),[10] Officer Olim in Kurt Weill's Silverlake: A Winter's Tale (1980);[11] Satan/Lucifer in Igor Stravinsky's The Flood (1982);[12] Ko-Ko in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1984, 2001);[13] Monostatos in Mozart's The Magic Flute (1985, 1992);[14] and Torquemada in Maurice Ravel's L'heure espagnole (1990, 1999).
[1] After graduating, he moved to New York City in 1958 where he was soon cast in the chorus of Albert Hague and Dorothy Fields 1959 musical Redhead starring Gwen Verdon; eventually replacing William LeMassena as Howard Cavanaugh during the show's run.
In addition to performing with the NYCO, Lankston also portrayed Anfinomo in the United States premiere of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria in 1974 with the Washington National Opera.
[24] He also portrayed the villainous Loge in Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park with conductor Christopher Keene in 1985.