JON ELKON is a writer, teacher, Martial Arts instructor and Green person, and a devotee of Baroque Opera. ‘It’s a flamboyant, eccentric, multicoloured, gilded world where all emotions are perfumed, pomaded and expressed with heartrending precision. I discovered this incredible art only ten years ago, under the spectral tutelage of Mr Handel and YouTube’ he says. It was this three-hundred-year old musical and dramatic feast which inspired his latest novel, ‘The Ragazzo.’ ‘I am very excited to be published by Alien Rabbit’, Elkon says. They have precisely the courage and innovative approach we need to power experimental and original writing into the 21st Century’
Imagine, in the late nineteenth century, two passionate Opera fans, millionaire gentlemen, who come to the conclusion that the only way to revive Baroque Opera would be to find – or manufacture – a true castrato with the voice of a demented Angel and create the greatest singer in the modern world. So they bet on it.
As with all crazy plans dreamed up in a bordello, nothing goes according to the libretto: the boy they buy and train turns out to be a serial killer. And who could blame him?
This story of pain greed, murder and unfulfillable love is told in the voice of the urbane, humorous, cynical ghost of Herr Handel. He is our guide all the way from the Cathedral of Naples to the Grand Finale at the Handel Festival of 1920 in which the body count almost matches exactly that of the Opera performed – Rodelinda by Georg Friderik Handel.
Jon Elkon’s previous books include Umfaan’s Heroes and Laszlo’s Millions, satires on Apartheid South Africa; Sally’s Road and collected poems ‘Some Day Soon.’ He is currently working on the sequel to Ragazzo, as well as a gay thriller, ‘Soho Warrior.’ He lives in London.
