Bel Canto Resources

And check out the website for the opera to be sure.

Does that sound creepy? It's all for the rhyme, we promise. And it gets you on your merry way to her very own website.

Ann Patchett's not only a writer. She also co-owns a bookstore in Nashville.

But wait—there is an opera! And a video recording of it is planned for the PBS Great Performances series. Thank goodness.

Find out for yourself. Or not for yourself, but read the review of the opera.

Here's an interview with Ann Patchett about Bel Canto. Get all the dirty secrets you thought you were getting from actually reading the book.

You're right. But you're also kind of wrong, because the plot is at least based on true events. Here's the New York Times article about the inspiration.

And here's an article about an opera star who communicates via social media with fans to prove it.

There seem to be at least a few real-life cases where people who are kidnapped start to identify with their kidnappers to varying degrees. Some people call it Stockholm Syndrome. Scholars debate how often this really happens and what it really means, but here's a nice, short history of the term.

Yes, the Met does have Facebook. And this is short, if you just want a small taste of opera and not a four-course meal.

Okay, so the book doesn't do a ton with the Valkyries, but it's a famous opera reference. So famous it's where that Viking hat stereotype came from. And this Met recording released to YouTube in 2012 is just so cool it makes even Wagner doubters want to watch. For a few minutes, if not four hours.

An over-the-top performance of a famous (and rather funny) aria that is featured in Bel Canto.

That's a mouthful. Joyce (that part's easy enough) DiDonato, one of the few opera stars known for social media savvy, gives an impassioned description of Alcina, the opera that Mr. Hosokawa loved listening to that time he was stuck at home with food poisoning.

Richard Tucker playing Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971.

Here's the art from the first edition of the piano score for the opera in question, which depicts the death of the character Scarpia in Act II. Don't worry, it's not too graphic.