Armand Arapian

French baritone of Greek and Armenian origins, Armand Arapian was born in Marseille and completed his musical education at the CNSM in Paris with Janine Micheau. He made his debut at the Vienna Staatsoper in 2000 in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, which he sang in Lille, Lucerne, Hamburg, Athens and Gand as well. In 1991, he debuted at the Berlin Staatsoper with Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande) under Michael Gielen and Ruth Berghaus. He sang the role over a hundred times in Berlin, Basel, Torino, Lille (Les Victoire de la Musique 1997), and in Peter Brook's Impressions de Pelléas. In 1985, he was invited by Herbert von Karajan at the Salzbourg Festival for Carmen, and from then on performed Escamillo more than sixty times in Essen, Seattle, Taormina, Frankfort and Rio de Janeiro. He's regularly invited at the Imperial Theatre of Compiègne where he takes part in the revival of forgotten French operas, with Ralph (La jolie fille de Perth), Rebolledo (Les diamants de la couronne), Hoël (Dinorah), Judas (Marie-Magdaleine) or the title role in Charles VI. Armand Arapian feels particularly at ease with "dark" characters such as Golaud, Pizzaro (Fidelio), Macbeth, Gérard (Andrea Chénier), Rigoletto, always revealing the small part of humanity which inspires pity. He's also frequently asked to champion a more contemporary repertory and instills his energy to characters such as Christophe Colomb (title role), Rivière (Volo di notte), Prosepro (Un re in ascolto), Freud (Le Visiteur), Le Général (Le Balcon) which he created at the Aix en Provence Int. Festival. He recorded the title role of "Polyphème" which won many awards including the Orphée d'Or 2004 of the Académie du Disque Lyrique. He can be also heard in Golaud/Pelléas et Mélisande (Naxos), Ralph/La jolie fille de Perth (TFM) and "KOMITAS, Armenian Song and Dances" (Dinemec Classics)