The Fandom of the Opera: A Linebacker, a White Whale... and a Secret

We get it: As Timothée Chalamet said, "no one cares" about opera. But you should listen, instead, to former college linebacker Brandon Jovanovich — whose impossible rise from cater waiter to Captain Ahab proves that the artform that used to rule the world has way more in common with sports than you realize. (And that's even before you realize what he's been playing through, onstage.) Also: what a castrato is, Bugs Bunny, actual divas, Modell's and monster trucks. Further content: • "Inhabiting Ahab" https://www.themontanaquarterly.com/inhabiting-ahab/ (Patrick J. Sauer) • Vote for PTFO at The Webby Awards: Best Sports Podcast https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/sports + Experimental & Innovation https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/features/experimental-innovation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is. Schon winkt der Wein im goldenen Pokale, doch trinkt noch ein Hekt. Erst sing ich euch ein Lied. Right after this ad.

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• 0:51Pablo Torre?

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• 1:35Pablo Torre?

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• 1:59Pablo Torre?

  One of the basic things that I did not appreciate about opera, until I was doing some amount of research into it, was that you guys don't get to use the thing that we're talking into right now.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:11Pablo Torre?

  And I felt like such a fucking idiot. We're talking singers before, the microphone does a lot of the work. And then I'm realizing, oh, traditionally in opera, you guys don't use microphones.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  It's just projection, just all voice, man. And your body's kind of one big resonating space. And, uh, you know, if you have a larger head, it helps a little bit because that sound bounces around.

• 2:30Pablo Torre?

  Wait, is that right? Like, the skull actually creates an amplifying?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  As far as I'm concerned, that's a, that's a fact.

• 2:36Pablo Torre?

  I'm now gonna measure Pavarotti's skull shape.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:40Pablo Torre?

  I'm like, you, you...

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Don't get me wrong, I know there's some smaller, I know there's some people that, you know, don't have the largest heads. But I know that when you start singing the bigger rep, everyone that I talk to seems to have a big old noggin. So, yeah.

• 2:52Pablo Torre?

  I love, I love that the opera combine, where they measure the prospects, they're like, "Yeah, this guy's skull's a little small."

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Gonna pass. I'll pass on that.

• 3:01Pablo Torre?

  But just even upkeep of your voice? I was joking to you in the kitchen, but like, that is the moneymaker.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a whole body thing because, uh, singing starts with the breath. So you need to have really fantastic breath support. If you have really large lungs, that helps, you know, that helps tremendously. I don't, it's the craziest thing.

• 3:20Pablo Torre?

  You have mediocre lungs?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, I have, uh, yeah, exactly. It's the craziest thing. But I know how to use the diaphragm and stuff, so, because you train so much that you, like, walking, you don't think about walking, how to step and put the foot down and stuff. But when you start singing, you have to think that way. And then you just use that more and more and more. And then you, all of a sudden, you're singing and you don't have to think about the technique anymore.

• 3:43Pablo Torre?

  I wanna get eventually to your actual past life as a football player. I do. I don't just want to metaphorically talk about football. I want to talk about that in real terms. But your scouting report as an opera singer.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:57Pablo Torre?

  What is it, Fran and Jovanovich? And thank you for being here, by the way.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Oh, please, please, please. My pleasure. My pleasure.

• 4:02Pablo Torre?

  What position do you play?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  So I'm a, I'm a tenor. Yeah, there's, there's, it, it, there's all these subcategories. So there's a soprano, mettlesoprano. There's something called a counter tenor. There's a tenor, baritone, bass, and there's other, there's a bunch of different little categories than that. But I do a lot of analogies with bikes or automobiles. So with somebody's maybe a speed bike, somebody's maybe more of a Harley, somebody's maybe more of a race car, somebody's maybe a monster truck, a semi truck. I'm more of probably the semi truck or monster truck variety, you know? I've got to do these long haul operas that last, you know, some of the longest one, I think, with intermissions is about six hours. And there's a couple, you know, two breaks in there, but it's just, you know,

• 4:46Speaker 02

  it's a huge orchestra pumping out this sound and you kind of have to learn to ride, ride over that.

• 4:53Pablo Torre?

  The physical upkeep.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:55Pablo Torre?

  The power that the monster truck needs to generate.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. Yeah.

• 4:59Pablo Torre?

  Could you help convey to our audience what that might sound like? Some tastes of that?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. So, you know, as, as a tenor, I'm, I'm kind of known as a dramatic, heroic tenor is what I'm kind of called, just the repertoire that I sing.

• 5:15Pablo Torre?

  I should say that we have never had opera performed in our studio before.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 5:21Pablo Torre?

  So you're breaking new ground and possibly glass. I don't know how this is gonna go.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. I don't know if I should move back or, uh, uh.

• 5:32Pablo Torre?

  You're looking at the wrong guy to, to give you advice on how to position this device that you'd normally never get to take advantage of.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wish. Oh, my gosh, this would be amazing. This would be a game changer. So I just, I just did this thing recently out in San Francisco. It's called Parsfall. It's a Wagner opera.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  I've been singing for three days straight, but let me give you a little, let me give you a little. So I go, I sing. Am vor das? Die Wunde, die Wunde. Sie bräht in meinem Herzen. Oh Klage, Klage. Forschbare Klage. Auf tiefstem Herzen schreit sie mir auf. Oh, oh, hey Lander. Ja, ma Faust. And so that's kind of the start of.

• 6:38Pablo Torre?

  I mean, I forgot the bouquet to throw at you.

• 6:44Pablo Torre?

  I apologize, but damn. I mean, look, dramatic heroic tenor is what you had said.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:51Pablo Torre?

  I feel like, okay, we believe you.

• 6:56Pablo Torre?

  We don't need to check ID. We believe you.

• 7:16Pablo Torre?

  I should admit that my opera education primarily comes from like movies and also Bugs Bunny.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. That was mine when I was growing up.

• 7:24Pablo Torre?

  Is that right?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I knew nothing about opera, nothing. Last thing in the world I thought I'd be doing is this.

• 7:30Pablo Torre?

  I vividly just remember the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:34Pablo Torre?

  What's Opera Doc cartoon?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  That's right, that's right. Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit. Kill the rabbit.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Kill the rabbit.

• 7:46Pablo Torre?

  And then at the end, as he's being carried by Elmer Fudd up to the celestial forever, Bugs kind of turns at the camera and says.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  That's it, that's it. Yeah.

• 8:08Pablo Torre?

  So at this point in the episode, you may understandably be wondering why in the [bleep] we are doing an episode that seems to be about opera, which is an understandable sentiment. It's no less than Timothy Chalamet told Matthew McConaughey before the Academy Awards earlier this year.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or, you know, things where it's like, hey, keep this thing alive, even though it's like no one cares about this anymore. All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.

• 8:36Pablo Torre?

  But I did not book Brandon Jovanovich, our guest today, simply to get you to care about opera, even though sports and pop culture have stolen from the opera house for a very long time, as you will see. I booked Brandon because he happens to be a former college linebacker whose own dramatic arc is as remarkable as any I have covered, starting back when Brandon moved to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in the mid-'90s.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  I was a cater waiter for about 10 years and I've worked some fantastic parties. I learned so much about New York.

• 9:07Pablo Torre?

  Oh, you're getting a crash course in the highest rungs of New York hierarchy.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  It's nuts and I'm from Billings, Montana, so I knew nothing about any of this.

• 9:17Pablo Torre?

  And one of Brandon's very first gigs just happened to be at the largest and busiest opera house in the entire world, the Metropolitan Opera House, right here in New York City, where he found himself serving at several opening night galas.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  And I remember the first time I had this big platter of, it was a salmon, and I had to serve it at this really high end. It was $10,000 a table. And I walked out there, I was in my tuxedo and I was one of the farthest tables away. And I walked out there and I went to the first person and they were talking and I leaned down and said, "Excuse me." And as I leaned down to say, "Excuse me," the tray just tipped a little bit and all the juice went right down this guy's back.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  He went jumping up and, oh my god.

• 10:02Pablo Torre?

  And if Brandon were merely the only person in the history of the Metropolitan Opera House to go from serving at an opening night to starring in one, that alone would be heroic enough, right there.

• 10:15Pablo Torre?

  But that is not even the story we're here to tell. Because when this married father of three debuted last year at the Met as Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, battling a form of marine life even more haunting than $10,000 salmon, Brandon Jovanovich was also hiding a profound, personal secret. A secret I am hoping he will ultimately discuss with us here today. Moby Dick, speaking of happy endings, by the way. I guess for those who don't remember or know the character of Ahab.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:50Pablo Torre?

  Can you explain him to our audience?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ahab is this captain aboard the Pequod and he was injured by this whale, and it was a white whale. And he has this maniacal need to hunt that whale down and to kill it.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  And it doesn't work out for him.

• 11:32Pablo Torre?

  Does not get the opportunity for a two-camera Bugs Bunny-style wink and nod.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 11:37Pablo Torre?

  Spoiler alert: being consumed by obsession and ambition does not work out.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, go figure.

• 11:41Pablo Torre?

  For old Captain Ahab.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, by no means.

• 11:45Pablo Torre?

  When you were playing Ahab, were you a method Ahab?

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, I mean, I think we all have so many variations of a white whale. I've got...

• 11:55Pablo Torre?

  Is it football?

• 11:58Pablo Torre?

  What part of you are haunted by the fact that you never made it?

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh. You know, back in the day, oh, that was, that was a big, that was a big, that was a big deal. You know, I mean, don't get me wrong. I was never, I, it was all projection. I wanted to be something. There was no way I was gonna make it. But I really wanted to. And happiness, financial security, you know, health, happy kids, you know, it's, it's funny. I've got all these things that at one point or another, I've been chasing.

• 12:27Pablo Torre?

  When I was hearing you describe the plot of Moby Dick, I was like, ah, so there's this guy who's obsessed with this quest and he will do anything to get it. And in the meantime, all the people who work for him are kind of wondering, is this guy insane?

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:40Pablo Torre?

  And I'm like, I feel like the people behind the glass working on my show often think that of me. Like, hey, we're gonna get the opera guy in today. Is that a good business idea?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  I'll be real honest, I was surprised as anyone. And I'm going, what the, what the hell are you talking to me for? You know, but okay. Hey, I'll do it.

• 12:59Pablo Torre?

  Your scouting report as a football player?

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:02Pablo Torre?

  You gave me one as the heroic dramatic tenor. What were you like as a linebacker, Brandon?

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Okay, so I, I'm from Billings, Montana. And this was back in the eighties. I was playing, I went to a little Catholic high school out there called Central. Central High School. And, and my dad, he was a big guy. He was about six, four, six, five. He's probably weighed 300 pounds.

• 13:24Pablo Torre?

  Big skull, I imagine.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Oh, he had a big old head. He had a, he had a big head. And I think they looked at him and they said, oh, oh, this guy's gonna be, this guy's gonna be something. And I got up to, you know, in high school and my one year I played in college, I was, I got up to about a 190. That's all I could, I capped out at that. And, you know, how was I? Oh, I was okay. I wouldn't say any, I wouldn't say great. I was good enough to get a scholarship to a minor, a minor college. NAIA college, a university of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.

• 13:58Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. Their second, they only, they only had, their program was up for two years and I got a scholarship and out of state scholarship to go there. So I just played there for one year and it was it was eighty below for three or four days with wind chill.

• 14:10Pablo Torre?

  It was eighty below with wind chill?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, eighty below for this one weekend and I'm from Montana and it gets it gets down cold, you know, it's forty below there, I can remember vividly, twenty below, ten below, I mean, I I'm used to cold weather, but that eighty below. And on the inside of our dorm, there was probably an inch and a half, two inches of ice on the bottom as all the the moisture goes down the the glass. But I said after that weekend, I said, man, I'm getting out of here, so ended up going to school down in Arizona. Yeah.

• 14:40Pablo Torre?

  You wind up at Northern Arizona University?

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I I contacted NAU and I said, when I was still up at at university mayor, and I said, hey, I'd like to come down and and play football for you guys. And they said, well, we don't know you, you know, you'd need to try out and all that stuff. I said, okay. And they said, you know, you could try out whenever you get down here and we could put you on maybe the next season, whatever. So I went down, but I couldn't afford to go to school down there, like, you know, like with the whole tuition and such and the way my family finances and such. So I needed a scholarship. So I had always sung in choirs. You know, my mom used to roll these chords on the piano and and sing a lot of Christmas songs all year, all year round. And I would sit down and sing with her. So I thought, okay, let me send in a tape to the music department. And they gave me a choir scholarship.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  So I got down there and I thought, okay, I'm on this choir scholarship. I sing a choir in the afternoon, I'll go play football, you know, after that. And they said, no, no, no, you're here, you've got to start doing all the musicals, the operas, you've got to earn this scholarship.

• 15:40Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, you got a roster spot, you got to justify.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  That's exactly right, yeah.

• 15:46Pablo Torre?

  I mean, they're scouts, their their reputations are on the line. They signed this kid sight unseen off of a VHS tape, I'm assuming, based on the chronology of of our civilization. And and yeah, you got to prove it.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  I've got to prove, I've got to, yeah. So I had to be there, so I had to abandon that and just go all in on the singing.

• 16:03Pablo Torre?

  And when do you realize this is something that I might be doing for potentially the rest of my life?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  It wasn't till I came out to New York and people kept saying, "Your voice is so big and you should really try opera."

• 16:17Pablo Torre?

  Because you were trying to do at first what in New York?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I was on this, like I did a little stint on Guiding Light, like just this little walk-on. You know, a little, little tiny thing. I did these little student films. I did a little modeling for...

• 16:29Pablo Torre?

  Please tell me it's some sort of product that is deeply embarrassing.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Oh, it was horri-- it was a football. I was, I was at Modell's. Is that?

• 16:35Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah, the sporting goods store.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, the sporting goods store, yeah.

• 16:38Pablo Torre?

  What year was this roughly?

• 16:40Speaker 02

  This must have been maybe 95, 96.

• 16:42Pablo Torre?

  Okay, so 95, 96, I'm 11 years old. It's entirely possible that I buy a football at Modell's here in New York City because of Brandon trying to be his best quarterback that he never was.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly, you know, that's it. So I started getting into a little bit, somebody said, "Go and try this opera apprenticeship out," which I went down to Santa Fe and did that. And, and people liked my voice and I started getting more and more work from that. And that slowly started taking off from there.

• 17:11Pablo Torre?

  At what point do you realize that the culture shock of opera is something that you need to acclimate to?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  It still is, you know.

• 17:19Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you're from, look, I, I'm a, I'm a New York elitist, as you now know. Montana's not a hotbed of opera.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  No, by no means.

• 17:26Pablo Torre?

  And I think of like the fanciest, most elite circles in New York as well as Europe.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  It's got a bad rap, I would say, that it's elitist. It really isn't, but it's this idea that it is. It used to be for the, for, well, it used to be for the kings and queens. But there were, you know, you'd have commoners and such that could go and watch this also.

• 17:46Pablo Torre?

  Oh, I, so I should say that in my adulthood, I have gone to Metropolitan Opera and I have been very concerned upon arrival that I have been severely underdressed.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:58Pablo Torre?

  And then only to realize, oh, wait a minute, no, there are some people who are like wearing business casual. Not everybody's wearing a tuxedo.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Oh, exactly, yeah.

• 18:04Pablo Torre?

  But, but on stage, I mean, truly, I think of Pavarotti.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Oh, boy, that's, that's who I grew up with too, was seeing him. His little white handkerchief.

• 18:13Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, a, a, a white handkerchief.

• 18:32Pablo Torre?

  This is just where I turned it into First Take but for opera. Is he the goat? Who's the greatest of all time to you?

• 18:38Speaker 02

  You know, some people will say that he is. For me, there's a guy named Franco Corelli, and he had this voice. He was just an animal. And he's this Italian spinto, tenor, they called him. And he could sing these notes like you wouldn't believe. A once in a lifetime sort of a tenor.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  But there's so many. There's another guy named James King, and he's more of a heroic tenor, like, well, like I am, but he's a goat in my field. You know, he just is a phenomenal voice.

• 19:42Pablo Torre?

  It occurs to me also, as I'm reflecting on the language we use in sports to describe star athletes. I mean, one word is literally, it turns out, from opera, which is the word diva.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, exactly. Oh, sure.

• 19:54Pablo Torre?

  Speaking of your female counterparts here, but like, we got that wide receiver, such a diva.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 19:59Pablo Torre?

  It originates, apparently, from the Italian for goddess. And it was used in 19th century opera. This is from your culture, your ancient culture.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  That's it. But there's so, it's funny. There's so many references. There's so much opera that is in our society that we don't even bat an eye at. We don't know. The wedding, the wedding song. Here comes the bride all dressed for. That's from Lohengrin. That's from a Wagner opera. Yeah.

• 20:25Pablo Torre?

  We're all doing Wagner at our weddings?

• 20:27Speaker 02

  That's right, yeah, you had no idea. And I didn't know it until about, heck, I don't even know, 2010. Somebody said, you know, "That's from the show you're gonna be singing in a couple of years." I said, "Oh jeez, you're kidding me." And yeah, there's just a ton of things. You know, Carmen has so many songs that you just hear riddled throughout commercials and just in life.

• 20:51Speaker 05

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• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's crazy, all the little pieces. And when you're in Europe, it's even more so. It's part of their language. You go into a grocery store and you hear opera in the background. But there's definitely a lot of opera here in the States that you just don't even realize.

• 21:37Pablo Torre?

  So I did promise you a secret, and we are gonna get to that. The thing that Brandon Jovanovich was carrying onto the Metropolitan Opera House stage as Captain Ahab in just a bit here. But in order to truly understand the devotion and the intensity that this particular art form is steeped in, I did wanna try and explain something else first. The concept of the castrato.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. You have these young boy singers, and they sing and they have this high soprano sound, and it's really crystalline, and they still sing like this in London and in a lot of European countries, maybe over here too. I'm sure there's one or two beautiful voices. And back in the day...

• 22:25Speaker 02

  You had a good voice and you needed a career. They would say, "We're keeping that voice of yours before testosterone kicks in. We're going to go ahead and neuter you." And they would snip the testes off of these kids. And... Their voices are gonna be like this their whole life.

• 22:44Pablo Torre?

  And this was in part because in various parts of Europe, under the control of the Catholic Church, such as Rome, women were banned from the stage altogether until about the 1800s. And so these men with the prepubescent vocal structures and the adult lung power despite that, came to be some of the richest and most famous celebrities in the whole world. The Timothy Chalamays of their time. In fact, composers like Handel and Vivaldi and Mozart, maybe you've heard of him. They wrote operas specifically for castrato sopranos.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  And they were just celebrated because they gave up their manhood for this art form. I mean, it wasn't against their will. I mean, you know, maybe they wanted to at the time. I don't know how many, 10 or...

• 23:32Pablo Torre?

  I'm not here to turn a political...

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:36Pablo Torre?

  To make a political turn.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 23:39Pablo Torre?

  In terms of, "We need to prosecute those." But the value ascribed to people who could hit those notes.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:51Pablo Torre?

  I mean, even into the turn of the 20th century, the man regarded as the world's first ever international recording star was an opera singer named Enrico Caruso, who was not a castrato, we should definitely point out here, but he was paid extraordinarily handsomely to use his physical gifts.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  So Enrico Caruso, he came over and he had these huge, huge, you know, probably the equivalent of singing for a million dollars a night, you know?

• 24:22Pablo Torre?

  Hmm.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  And that was, he was one of the most famous, but there was plenty of people that had the same sort of fanaticism behind them and want people wanting their autograph and whatever.

• 25:03Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  And this was before we had a lot of sports in the United States. And this was the entertainment for a vast majority of the country.

• 25:13Pablo Torre?

  Live arena filling entertainment.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Exactly, you know, and, and they're up there doing their own sort of sports, like, you know, yeah, being able to pump out this sound for hours at a time.

• 25:28Pablo Torre?

  The first time that the New York Times writes about you, it's 1996. You're doing the gondoliers, I believe.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, yeah, okay.

• 25:35Pablo Torre?

  And here's a quote, "But the true heir turned out to be the Duke's strapping attendant, strapping attendant to your physical description just now, winningly played by the bright-voiced tenor Brandon Jovanovich, whose stiff demeanor was a refreshing contrast to some of the mugging going on around him." And again, you've now typecast yourself as the big American oaf.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:53Pablo Torre?

  But you're on these stages and you're like infiltrating this, this company, this, this, this culture and the climb. And that was 96, 30 years ago.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Jeez Louise.

• 26:04Pablo Torre?

  How do you describe the climb?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  My career has had a very slow and steady ascension. It's been slow, though. A lot of these kids nowadays, they're taking off a lot faster. Mine was small companies, small roles, small places, small houses. And I just kind of kept building block by block until I make it to the Metropolitan Opera or Paris, Vienna, you know, La Scala. And yeah, it's, it's, it's a really wild, I never in a million years thought I was gonna get there or that I deserved to be there, but that's, that's the way it worked out for me.

• 26:40Pablo Torre?

  What was the sort of, I can't believe this is happening to me moment? On, on player podcasts in sports, what was your welcome to the league moment? Brandon, Jovanovich, what was your welcome to opera moment?

• 26:53Speaker 02

  So I was in Le Comte Hovman, The Tales of Hoffman. And I had sung it in this little theater in Nantes, France. And then they needed a cover. Somebody was gonna get one performance at La Scala in Milan. This is in 2004. So I went audition for him and they gave me the role. I went there, was rehearsing. Horrible rehearsal experience. I mean, it was really bad. There was a, the director was just sheer hell. And the other tenor, the main tenor, he was on, he was on tour. So I was rehearsing with both people. And, and then it came to, the tenor arrived just before we opened. And he said, I cannot sing today. My, my voice is very tired.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  So the conductor at the time, his name is Gary Bertini. He said, Brandon, come down here. You come down here and sing. So I had to stand and really not, you don't do this. You sing with the other tenor right there. So I sang the whole first, the prologue and the, and the first act. And the tenor walked down, this other guy, and he came in and he goes, Brandon, I don't know you. I'd like to meet you. And he goes, my name is so and so. And so I introduced myself. He goes, I want to let you know, there's 95% chance I don't sing opening night. I said, oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. He goes, actually, it's 100%. I'm going to quit now. And so he went and quit. And so I thought, jeez Louise. So I ended up opening this huge production at La Scala. And I was pinching myself, you know? Was I ready for it?

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. But was I up there doing it? You bet I was.

• 28:26Pablo Torre?

  Much like Tom Brady filling in for Drew Bledsoe.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 28:29Pablo Torre?

  On short notice. So too, did you take the stage.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 28:33Pablo Torre?

  In front of the world.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:34Pablo Torre?

  What are nerves like in opera?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  It's very nerve wracking. You know, you get.

• 28:39Pablo Torre?

  Still, you still feel it.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Before I walk out on stage, I'm very nervous. As soon as I get out there, it's like being at home. It's, I feel so comfortable on a stage and, and I feel very secure. And I like to, I like to pretend and, and I, you don't see, when you're on stage, you don't see the audience. It's just bright lights in your eyes. And I've become a character. I'm not Brandon. So it's much easier once you're on there. But beforehand, oh, it's very nerve wracking. And you have one take. That's what I was telling my mom back when she was alive. I was saying, you know, yeah, you know, this is a one shot deal. You go out there, you mess up, you keep going. They can't stop and let's rewind, take that again. No, you do it. And so there's a lot of nerves involved because, you know, nobody's perfect.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  You're gonna mess up something, whether it's a word, whether it's a note, whatever. And you could keep going.

• 29:29Pablo Torre?

  Again, in my review of opera criticism, it does not seem like these people are particularly generous.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  No, by no means. Oh, gosh.

• 29:38Pablo Torre?

  I'm trying to imagine like what it's like. Again, the sports parallels, like these columnists are really just like, on my ass.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Oh, please. I have this one guy, a Spanish reviewer, and he was in Europe. And I tell you, I could have sung, I could have opened up and like, you know, the angels of heaven could have come out of my mouth. And horrible, you know, what a sound. Oh, it's disgusting. He doesn't know what he's doing. And he hates me to this day. I mean, he's probably reviewed me over 20 times. I've never gotten a good review from this guy ever. And there's a point where you have to stop reading him. You know what I'm saying?

• 30:12Pablo Torre?

  You literally could have castrated yourself and would not have done the job.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 30:28Pablo Torre?

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• 32:02Pablo Torre?

  One of the things that, and you were just referencing this, how you got this experience in Europe where suddenly you were the understudy having to fill in.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:12Pablo Torre?

  There were a number of performances of you doing Moby Dick at the Met Opera in New York City where your understudy turned out to be needed.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:21Pablo Torre?

  A bunch.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  A bunch, three in a row.

• 32:24Pablo Torre?

  And so for those who don't know why that is, which is, I think, everybody listening to this.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:30Pablo Torre?

  Why?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  I was receiving chemotherapy. And so I was supposed to have six rounds of chemo. They added three rounds for me. And so on the seventh round, it was going to be after opening night, and it was. I flew back home, got this chemo. And then I came back and I think I was done. The show was on a Sunday, I believe. I flew out Monday morning, got this chemo, flew back on Tuesday. And then I think we had a show on Thursday or Friday. I forget. And my friend from college was coming in, so I wanted to be sure to sing for him. He and his daughter, he had just lost his wife recently, so I wanted to make, it was a big thing for him. So I was feeling a little funky because it does something to your chords, it kind of dries you out.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  So I, um, so my chords weren't working quite right, but I powered through it and I got up the next day and they were trashed.

• 33:22Pablo Torre?

  Your vocal chords?

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, my vocal chords. They were just fried. So I thought, okay, I'll take this next one, I'll let Alex, he was my, uh, my cover at the time, and I was gonna let him take this performance. And so he sang it, and then I was hoping I was gonna be ready for the next one, no way. So he sang the next one, then I was hoping I was gonna be good enough for the next one, no, no way. So then I was able to do the last ones, but, uh, yeah, it was a, it was a trying experience, yeah.

• 33:49Pablo Torre?

  I have a habit of burying leads on this show, but this one, I, I do, I did wanna withhold just because your story, everything we've described, took place in this context, which again, the audience, the reviewers certainly, but the audience, you're, they didn't know?

• 34:05Speaker 02

  No, no, no one knew, no, no one knew what was going on.

• 34:08Pablo Torre?

  They didn't know that you were dealing with stage four prostate cancer?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no one knew it at the time, yeah. And for the most part, no one knows now. Well, you know, maybe the few listening to this now will, but yeah.

• 34:18Pablo Torre?

  The people who have made it this deep in.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:20Pablo Torre?

  Are, are realizing, they're realizing, one of the reasons why I was like immediately, yes, I wanna understand how the [bleep] this guy did this.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it was, it was something.

• 34:31Pablo Torre?

  I don't, I don't, I don't understand how you showed up to play that game.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Let's go back a few years.

• 34:35Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, please.

• 34:40Pablo Torre?

  It turns out that the story of how Brandon Jovanovich became the first person to take the stage of the Metropolitan Opera while secretly fighting stage four prostate cancer starts in 2015.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  In 2015, I was singing, um, oh gosh, it was "Die Meister-Singer", out in, this is another Wagner opera. This was the longest one, I'd probably say that I sung. And this was out in San Francisco. And I ate something bad and I got really sick and, uh, and it just kind of, um, no big deal, I went to, we were now working with the orchestra and stuff. And so I was on stage and my knee started hurting. Thought that was odd, maybe I moved wrong. Then my ankle started hurting, then they both started swelling. That's, this went over a little, a short period of time. And I kept going to the doctor over and over again. And he said, finally, he said, you know, when you get home, go see a rheumatologist.

• 35:29Pablo Torre?

  And a rheumatologist, by the way, is a doctor who specializes in autoimmune diseases and muscles and joints and connective tissues. Some of the more confusing mysteries of the human body.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  So I went to a rheumatologist and, and they said, you have something called "anklesing spondylitis". It's a disease that you get swelling of the, a lot of swelling in your, in your joints kind of start, um, in your back especially, starts fusing. And he said, you know, um, you can get on something and it took about three months, but it was, uh, this, this biological drug called Humira. Wonderful drug, I tell you, it was like, it was like, I, the first time I took it, it felt like glass was breaking in my body.

• 36:07Pablo Torre?

  Which was a positive development at that point because Brandy could just loosen up those swollen joints and finally start moving his body again.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  And this was a game changer, but what it does, it suppresses the immune system.

• 36:20Pablo Torre?

  And then, years later, something else felt like it was breaking.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  I was singing in Europe, I sang a production in Barcelona and I had this harness on me. They had to, it looked like a big washing machine, I strapped onto this thing. And they lifted me up high in the air when I was dead. It's about 20 feet, 25 feet in the air and, uh, hanging upside down by the strap. And the first time they put it on, it felt like I broke a rib, I felt something snap. And they did an X-ray and he said, well, I don't think it's broken. He goes, but it, it could be. Now, and I, I was supposed to go to London and sing something and, uh, and I just couldn't get my breath to work. This is in early 2024, I just couldn't get my breathing right. My breathing had been off, I just, you can tell it when you use it all the time. And it was just a little bit off. And so I had to withdraw from this production, didn't know what was going on.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Then I went to Munich, back to back, and I did another show, that's a Russian opera called "Peek Dumb". And I did one performance and then I got sick with, uh, COVID. So I went home.

• 37:19Pablo Torre?

  And so this is where I just need to say that I talked to one of Brandon's high school classmates, the writer Patrick Sauer, whose delightful profile of Brandon in Montana Quarterly is how I first learned about this story in the first place. And what Patrick also made clear, it is not clear by now, on account of Brandon's continued global itinerary, despite the fact that his lungs had apparently stopped functioning normally, is that the dude never wanted to sit out games, like ever. But this time, went home, we're there for about a week, and I woke up one night with

• 37:53Speaker 02

  just this killer pain in my stomach, and I told my wife, I said, "I'm gonna drive myself to the hospital. I think I've got, I think my appendix burst. It's freaking killing me." They did some CAT scans and such, and this doctor comes in, I was laying, laying in this bed, and he said, "Boy, I don't want to give you bad news, but I think you've got, you've got cancer."

• 38:12Pablo Torre?

  But after the doctors ran a battery of tests, plus blood work, over the next couple of days, they could not immediately find the cancer. One theory was that Brandon was suddenly having an intense allergic reaction to his own humira medication, which we mentioned before. And so Brandon Jovanovich simply decided to keep pushing through.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  So I went home, and actually, I flew out here, and I took photos for this big photo shoot for the Met Opera, the Ahab thing. And got done with that.

• 38:49Pablo Torre?

  I gotta say, at this point in the story, I know you said you're not a method Ahab.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 38:59Pablo Torre?

  But allow me to observe that we were talking about obsession and ambition and the self-destruction.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:07Pablo Torre?

  And you're, you're do, you're pushing through, literally to play the character who pushes through at all costs.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  That's it. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy. I went over to Zurich, I was supposed to do a show over there, and some blood work came back, and it said my PSA, which is the prostate antigen that they measure- Your blood is supposed to be between zero and four. And that's like the normal range. Mine came back at, I think at the time it was 172. So I went to a doctor in Zurich, they tested again. Sure enough, it was then, by then it was like 196 or something like that. And, uh, long story short, at MDR coming home. It was 212 at that point and, uh, and I, they started me on chemo right away. And it was, it spread throughout my body. My prostate kind of burst open.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  It was pushing up against all of my guts and statues. It was really horrible.

• 40:03Pablo Torre?

  But in all sincerity, I'm now reading this quote from the editor in chief of Opera Wire, David Salazar, quote, Brandon Jovanovich is a force of nature. I loved his Ahab, a man you aren't exactly supposed to love.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 40:18Pablo Torre?

  And that I think is a fantastic scouting report on you.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:21Pablo Torre?

  He made me love Ahab.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 40:26Pablo Torre?

  And how are you doing now?

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I'm doing pretty good. I've got a, um, so I did these nine rounds of chemo. There's still, I've got these things, it's called bone mets. It's, it's these, uh, it's metastasized and it's sitting on some bones. So to kill it faster, uh, these, uh, so that these die a little bit faster. I'm taking something, it's this newer drug. It's called Pluvitco. And you get six rounds of high intensity radiation. That is specifically attracted to the prostate cancer itself. So they douse you with this thing and for six weeks, they let it float around in your body and it's just attacking the prostate cancer, killing it more. And then I go back and get another one. I'm, right now I'm in, uh, three rounds. I've got three more to go.

• 41:09Pablo Torre?

  Wow.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  And, uh, and hopefully that's going to clean up, uh, a lot of this stuff. Just let the body heal itself and, and, uh, do it, do the thing. So yeah, I'm doing all right.

• 41:18Pablo Torre?

  It's incredible, man. I mean, you, look, I believe you are the first cater waiter to go from cater waiting to the stage at the Met Opera, but certainly this added level of like, who has ever done anything quite like your life?

• 41:35Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 41:37Pablo Torre?

  And who has better resembled in a quite real way, this theme of opera, which is? Profound strength, but also like legitimate vulnerability.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  I'm sure there's other people. I'm not trying to say that I am the, you know, but...

• 41:50Pablo Torre?

  You're the only one that's been in this podcast studio and for that reason, you're gonna, you're gonna receive these flowers.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  My gosh, that's it.

• 41:55Pablo Torre?

  You're gonna receive these flowers, damn it.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  That's it.

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• 43:07Speaker 01

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• 43:39Pablo Torre?

  As a last parting note, is there anything perhaps that feels like it channels something like joy that you might give us? What should we go out on?

• 43:49Speaker 02

  You know what, there's a the thing that I'm singing right now up in Boston. It's this, it's really sad, actually. This, this, this, this guy named Mahler, his wife died, his mom died, and his kid died, all in one year. And he wrote this really heartfelt song about suffering and such. But in the end, it says, you know, "But the earth is always gonna have spring, and spring was gonna come again and again and again." So, you know, life lives on. But the Metzger gets to sing that. I'm, I'm more the composer. And I say, "If things get crappy, have another drink." Pretty much. And so that's what I'm singing. So I'll give you a little bit of what I, just, I'll give you a start of, of one of these.

• 44:28Pablo Torre?

  Please.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Let me think here. Yeah, okay. So this is the, this is the little thing from there. "Schon winkt der Wein im goldenen Pokale, doch trinkt noch ein Hekt, erst singe ich euch ein Lied. Das Lied vom Kummer soll auf Lachen in die Seele euch legen." So there's a little bit.

• 45:05Pablo Torre?

  Brandon Jovanovich, the official, you're now being conferred this title, the official dramatic heroic tenor of Pablo Torre Finds Out.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  It's been a pleasure.

• 45:15Pablo Torre?

  I don't know, man, maybe operas do have happy endings.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, my gosh, I'm gonna take it. I think that sounds good. There's, there's some that do. There are some that have happy endings, so, you know, I'll take it. I like that, I like that ending.

• 45:34Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

• 46:01Speaker 06

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• 46:31Speaker 07

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