BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog for an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!  (You can tell it's very important because I just used bold-face, italics and all caps; THAT'S how important it is...)

My book, THE OPERA ZOO: SINGERS, COMPOSERS AND OTHER PRIMATES, is now available for sale from Kendall Hunt Publishing.  I'm an author, my opera-loving peeps!

Do not look for this little volume in your local Barnes & Noble or other neighborhood bookstore.  I am not John Grisham, and bookstores across the nation will not be flooded with copies of The Opera Zoo.  Getting a book published, as I've learned, is all about platform.  Grisham and his best-selling ilk have global platforms.  They come in all sizes, and mine is regional-ish. 

This means that if you'd like a copy, you must order direct from the publisher, which you can do by clicking on this link, which will take you to my page on the Kendall Hunt catalogue.  The cost is $30.00.

For those of you who are new to my blog, The Opera Zoo is based on earlier blog posts which are now only available in book form.  The content for two-thirds of the book is similar to this season's posts; namely, a collection of ironic essays spoofing the opera world in what I've been told is a Garrison Keillor-type tone with a little Woody Allen mixed in for good measure.  Opera parodies, opera analyses: you get the idea.

In addition, you'll find a journal I kept while a guest artist at the 2010 Operafestival di Roma in Italy, where I participated in a festival production of Strauss's Die Fledermaus, writing about the process of staging a production, as well as my impressions of the people, sights and (most importantly) food in one of the world's great cities.

We missed our original deadline of a Christmas release, but all's well that ends well.  Please consider ordering a copy for yourself or an opera-loving friend.

And in just a couple of days we'll return to our normal postings, including this Sunday's libretto parody of Philip Glass's Orphée.