her performance and offered her a contract with the Opera Bonn in Germany. Her professional career as an opera singer had then begun. This very first contract was for principal roles in Verdi’s La traviata, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen. She sang Tosca for the first time at the Vienna State Opera in 1995. Repertoire Her repertoire ranges from Mozart's Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Rossini's Mathilde (William Tell), Halévy's Rachel (La Juive) and Bizet's Micaëla (Carmen), passing by Puccini's Mimì (La Bohème), Magda (La Rondine), Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Ponchielli's Gioconda (La Gioconda), and Boito's Margareta/ Elena (Mefistofele) to Tchaikovsky's Lisa (The Queen of Spades) and Richard Wagner's Senta (The Flying Dutchman). It contains twelve Verdi-roles: La Traviata, Desdemona (Otello), Aida, Leonora (Il Trovatore and La forza del destino), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Elena (I vespri siciliani), Amelia (Simon Boccanegra), Elvira (Ernani), Lady Macbeth, Abigaille (Nabucco), Odabella (Attila) as well as the Requiem. A central part for her is Bellini's Norma; she has appeared in this role among others at Vienna Volksoper, at the Regio of Turin, in Montreal, Baltimore, Detroit, Denver, Washington, D.C. and at the Metropolitan Opera New York, at Opéra de Marseille, Opéra de Montpellier, at the festivals Chorégies d'Orange (South of France) and Luglio Trapanese (Sicily), in Mannheim, Stuttgart, St. Gallen, Split, Rotterdam and at De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam. The Amsterdam production has been released on DVD in October 2006. In January 2009, she has added another bel canto role to her repertoire: Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux (debut at The Dallas Opera). Artistic appearances Papian has appeared in most European countries, in Israel, Lebanon (Baalbeck International Festival), Japan, Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Chile), as well as Canada (Toronto, Montreal) and the United States where she is invited regularly (besides Washington, DC, San Francisco and the Met also Baltimore, Detroit, Cincinnati Festival and Denver, among others). She has performed with many notable conductors – such as Riccardo Muti, Valery Gergiev, Georges Prêtre, Michel Plasson, Marcello Viotti, Maurizio Arena, Myung-whun Chung, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Plácido Domingo, Leonard Slatkin, James Morris and James Conlon. Papian is also very active promoting the music of fellow Armenian composers such as Komitas Vardapet, Yeranian, Kanatchian, Tchoukhadjian, Tigranian, Avet Terterian and Tigran Mansurian in her recitals. In 2006, a Super Audio CD with 36 songs of Komitas had been released, including some nine songs on German poetry