Brandon Jovanovich

Winner of the 2007 Richard Tucker Award, Brandon Jovanovich is recognized by the world's leading opera companies for his passionate stage portrayals of leading roles in French, Italian, German, and Slavic opera. As Opera Magazine noted of his thrilling San Francisco Opera debut in Madama Butterfly last season, the American tenor's "refined instrument and dashing manner stirred superlatives."

In the summer of 2008, Mr. Jovanovich makes his U.K. debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Don José in David McVicar's production of Carmen, conducted by Stéphane Denève. The 2008/2009 season is marked by several notable company debuts: as Turridu in Cavalleria Rusticana for the season opening of Houston Grand Opera; at Washington National Opera as Don José; and at Los Angeles Opera in Walter Braunfels's Die Vögel, conducted by James Conlon as part of the "Recovered Voices" series. Mr. Jovanovich also makes his role debut as Peter Grimes at Teatro di San Carlo di Napoli. Highlights of his 2008/2009 concert season include Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand" with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, as well as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

In the summer of 2007, Mr. Jovanovich sang Cavaradossi in Tosca with the Bregenzer Festspiele, selections from which will be heard on the soundtrack of the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Highlights of the 2007-08 season included Macduff in Macbeth for the season opening of the Dallas Opera, Turridu in the Stephen Lawless production of Cavalleria Rusticana at New York City Opera, Cavaradossi with the Seattle Opera and l'Opera de Nice, and his role debut as the Prince in Rusalka with Minnesota Opera. His critically acclaimed debut with San Francisco Opera as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly was also seen in high-definition in movie theatres across the United States.

Highlights of previous seasons include Levin in the world premiere of Anna Karenina with Florida Grand Opera and Opera Theatre of St. Louis; Cavaradossi with l'Opéra National de Bordeaux and de Vlaamse Opera; Turridu with Dallas Opera and Palm Beach Opera; Pinkerton with New York City Opera and Staatstheater Stuttgart; Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with Austin Lyric Opera; and the title roles in Candide with Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, Werther with l'Opéra de Lille, and the title roles in both Dido and Aeneas and Les Contes d'Hoffmann at La Scala, for which he was acclaimed in Corriere della Sera as "a revelation…perfect diction, healthy singing and elegance of line, timbre of a true tenor…a Phoenix."

An accomplished musician and actor, Mr. Jovanovich has had successes in repertoire both standard and contemporary, including Pollione in Norma, Boconnion in Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur (Grammy-nominated recording available on Chandos), Macduff in Macbeth, Alfredo in La Traviata, Prologue/Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Narraboth in Salome, Baron Lummar in Strauss's Intermezzo, Luigi in Il Tabarro, Sam in Susannah, Jean Gaussin in Massenet's Sapho (CD available on Opera Rara), Ladislov in Smetena's Two Widows, the American premiere of Lowell Lieberman's The Picture of Dorian Gray as Lord Geoffrey, the title role in the world premiere of Craig Bohmler's The Tale of the Nutcracker, Don José in Peter Brook's La Tragédie de Carmen, Sam Kaplan in Kurt Weill's Street Scene, Bill in the American premiere of Jonathan Dove's Flight, Paris in the Laurent Pelly production of La Belle Hélène and Phillippe l'Entendu in Romberg's The New Moon (CD available on Ghostlight Records).

A native of Billings, Montana, Brandon Jovanovich received his training at Northern Arizona University and at Manhattan School of Music. He was twice a New York City district winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He was a founding member of the Seattle Young Artists program in 1998, and was a member of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice program in 1996/97 where he was given the Anna Mackay Case Award. He won the Crawley Award from the Young Patronesses of the Opera/Florida Grand Opera Voice Competition and in 2004 he was given the prestigious ARIA Award.