Long before Gus Farwell stepped onto that seventh-floor balcony in Barcelona, serenading a neighborhood on lockdown because of the coronavirus, he was a backup quarterback at Arizona State, listed behind Jake Plummer on the offensive depth chart.
Farwell was an under-recruited quarterback from Los Gatos, Calif. After a stellar senior season, he was named first team All-Central Coast Section ahead of a quarterback from Junipero Serra High named Tom Brady. Farwell came to Tempe as a walk-on and Plummer took him under his wing. A theater major, Farwell had a strong arm — but a stronger voice. And his teammates loved it.
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At parties, they would have Farwell reenact the scene from the 1994 movie “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” when actor Jim Carrey solves the crime in front of a sliding glass door. “This is double-paned sound-proof glass.”
Plummer finished the scene Wednesday: “There’s no way that neighbor could’ve heard Roger Podacter scream on the way down with the door shut.” Farwell then would sing opera-style while opening and closing the glass door, just like Carrey in the movie, “and we’d laugh and laugh,” Plummer said.
Just realized I haven’t put any of this on Twitter. Just singing on my balcony in Barcelona trying to keep spirits up. We’ll get through this! #ForksUp #COYS pic.twitter.com/wJHhC2VylH
— Gustaf Farwell (@GusFarwell) March 24, 2020
This was 1996, ASU’s dream season. With Plummer leading the way, the Sun Devils won the Pac-10 and headed to the Rose Bowl. After practicing one day in Pasadena, coach Bruce Snyder told the Sun Devils that the next day the team would visit Universal Studios in Los Angeles. “And they’re going to have a talent show,” Snyder said. “Whoever wants to be in it, go ahead.”
Farwell started thinking. A couple of years earlier, he had attended a high school party. It was late and the six-disc CD player had run through most of the music selections, but then it stopped on something different. Farwell had done musical theater, but opera was somewhat foreign to him. “What is this?” he asked. A friend told him it was Luciano Pavarotti’s greatest hits. Farwell borrowed it — and never gave it back.
While most kids this age drove around listening to rap or heavy metal, Farwell listened to Pavarotti. And as the ASU players boarded the team bus to return to their Rose Bowl hotel, Farwell, then 19, slipped on his headphones and listened to Pavarotti’s “Vesti la giubba.” (“You’d recognize it in a heartbeat,” Farwell said. “It’s from like all the Godfather movies when everyone’s getting murdered.”)
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That’s when it hit him: “I’m going to sing this at the talent show tomorrow,” Farwell thought. Never mind this was an extremely difficult aria, one that experienced opera singers struggle to master. Never mind Farwell never had sung opera in front of an audience. His mind was made up. And so he sang (a cappella!) in front of both Rose Bowl teams, television cameras and celebrity judges. And at first, everyone laughed because they thought he was joking. But then they realized he was serious and they saw something they hadn’t expected. When it was over, a reporter from E! Entertainment asked Farwell to sing “Hello E!” opera-style into a camera.
A star was born? Not exactly. But a seed was planted.
The football part of Farwell’s story doesn’t end well. After the 1996 season, with Plummer gone, Farwell was expected to compete for ASU’s starting job. But two weeks after the Rose Bowl, he learned that one of his closest friends, along with her father and brother, had been hit by a drunk driver. They died Jan. 17, the same day Farwell’s father had died of pancreatic cancer five years earlier. The grief sent Farwell into a tailspin. During spring ball, the competitive juices never kicked in. Coaches yelled, but the quarterback didn’t respond. “My heart just wasn’t in it,” Farwell said.
Upon returning to Tempe in the summer, he told quarterbacks coach John Pettas that he was done. He left the university and spent a year soul-searching. After getting his grades up in junior college, Farwell enrolled at Santa Clara and earned his degree in theater. In 2002, he went to Europe for two months and backpacked. (If this sounds like something Pat Tillman would do, then perhaps this would be a good time to share that Farwell and Tillman were close friends. At ASU, Tillman once showed up at one of Farwell’s theater productions without even telling him beforehand. “Some guys are just about the sport and nothing but the sport, which is great, but Pat and I had interests outside of football,” Farwell said.)
Late one night at a dance club in Barcelona, Farwell met an English woman named Claire. They fell in love and got married. At the time, Farwell wanted to get into acting but once Claire heard him sing she said: “Wait a minute, you’re not going to get away with not using that.”
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The problem: Getting involved in opera at such an age was like an English major deciding five years after college he wanted to go to med school. Important steps and training had been missed. Still, Farwell worked. He moved to Los Angeles and worked with private teachers and voice coaches. He also caught a break and landed an opportunity at a popular Phoenix event.
In 2012, Farwell sang at Celebrity Fight Night, an event that honored Muhammad Ali and raised money to fight Parkinson’s disease. The initial plan was for Farwell to sing the national anthem, but at the last minute, organizers asked him to sing at the Founders Club Dinner, held the night before. “They said, ‘Why don’t you do one classical song and then — do you know any Billy Joel songs?’” Farwell said. “I think they were afraid I was going to bore everybody to tears with classical.”
Introduced at the dinner by famed producer David Foster, Farwell sang “Piano Man” and “O sole mio.” When he finished, the celebrity-filled crowd gave Farwell a standing ovation. Actor Tom Hanks pulled white tulips from the table centerpiece, walked to the stage and threw the flowers at Farwell, one by one. For an aspiring performer, it was quite the evening.
Farwell recalled all this Wednesday from his apartment in Barcelona. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spain had been on lockdown for nearly three weeks. Once during an hour-long conversation, Farwell was interrupted by ambulance sirens from the streets below. “Sorry about that,” Farwell said. “That’s probably the 10th one I’ve heard today. It’s been incredible.”
Farwell and Claire, along with their two daughters, moved to Barcelona two and a half years ago. After a concert, he had dined with famed opera singer Placido Domingo, who told him he belonged in an opera house. Farwell and Claire thought Barcelona was the right career move but nothing came easily. Farwell studied at the Liceu Conservatory, which is tied to the big opera house in Barcelona. Last year, he entered a competition in Italy. He prepared tirelessly, thinking this could springboard his career — but he didn’t even advance past the first round.
Farwell was devastated. “How could I impress someone like Placido Domingo and not even get out of the first round?” he thought. He gave up for a stretch. Didn’t sing for eight months. “I was like, ‘Well, maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the end of this,”’ Farwell said.
He paused.
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“And then a global pandemic breaks out.”
The first day of the lockdown, Farwell stepped out onto his balcony. Someone across the street waved. He waved back. More people stepped out. In an unscripted moment of togetherness, they cheered medical workers and all those working in pharmacies and other essential places. Caught up in the emotion, Farwell sang two notes of “Nessun dorma,” the final words translating into, “I will win.” The neighborhood roared. The next night Farwell sang “O sole mio.”
Farwell, 43, has returned to the balcony every night since, always at 8 p.m., and slowly his love for opera has returned. He looks through books for material. He warms up his voice. He places a speaker between his legs. A classical singer longs for a beautiful stage with wonderful acou—stics, but it is here, on a windy Barcelona balcony, high above the streets that Farwell has moved the masses. “I’m going to be out there with an umbrella at some point,” he said, referring to the weather forecast.
As of Wednesday, Spain had 39,673 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the World Health Organization. The Farwells recently heard that an ice rink in Madrid had been converted into a morgue to help store the deceased. Although there is nervousness, there also is hope. Farwell feels like a small part of this, and it’s revived his passion.
“I’m working on new pieces for the first time in a long time,” Farwell said about an hour before his evening performance. “And it just feels good. It just feels right. It’s coming from the right place. It’s not about me at all. It’s about this community. And the way people are reacting … ”
Each night, Farwell’s daughters record video of his performance. They post it on social media. He’s heard from ASU teammates such as Plummer. (“To see him doing that was really amazing,” Plummer said.) He’s heard from high school friends, including a nurse who told him that the video was exactly what he needed after a “hellish” day at work.
“It’s just a couple minutes and people forget what’s going on,” Farwell said. “That’s why I love to sing.”
(Top photo courtesy Gus Farwell)
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