Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe are perfect casting choices. It appears that Gen will play less of a role in the film, judging by the trailer, but despite some other changes I noticed, the trailer looks promising. The novel revolves around opera singer Roxane Cross, Japanese businessman and opera lover Katsumi Hosokawa, his translator Gen, and their dealings with the terrorists who take them hostage. Bel Canto loosely tells the story of the Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru in 1996-1997. About the author (2002) Ann Patchett (born December 2, 1963) is an American author. It was also adapted into an opera in 2015. Coss takes him under her wing and gives him singing lessons. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett Bel Canto is the fourth novel by American author Ann Patchett, published in 2001 by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. But one morning when Coss does not come down to sing, Cesar performs instead, and his voice is practically miraculous. For most of the novel, no one really notices Cesar.

Because of this, Bel Canto has the feel of an older novel, while being very modern in its subject matter. A young terrorist with crooked teeth and a crooked nose. I first read it in a creative writing class, where we discussed Patchett’s use of the omniscient narrator, so rarely used in modern novels though quite common in older ones. Based on the novel by Ann Patchett loosely based on the 1996 Peruvian Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis Bel Canto is an unusual love story that follows opera star Roxane Cross (Julianne Moore) who travels to an unnamed country in South America to perform at a private concert for Katsumi. Here’s the trailer, released yesterday.īel Canto won both the Orange Prize in Fiction and the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

At the end of the novel, Coss is giving voice lessons to Cesar, a young terrorist. In the beginning of the novel, Roxanne Coss has just finished singing at Katsumi Hosokawa’s birthday party when terrorists burst in and take everyone hostage. As a native Nashvillian, I’m very excited to watch Bel Canto, Ann Patchett’s (owner of Parnassus Books here in Nashville) first book-to-film adaptation. Bel canto is a term from opera that means beautiful song.

Bel canto novel