The Opera Ghost Unraveled
Michelle Gliottoni-Rodriguez wrote her first novel in high school.  Fifteen years later, and she’s up to 26 and still counting.  Fascinated with Gothic romances, she would call her greatest influences the works of the Brontë sisters and then add in an adoration and semi-obsession for “The Phantom of the Opera” and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  In August 2011, she published her first novel, a Gothic romance titled Opera Macabre.  That was followed with the publication of the first of her angel series The Devil’s Galley; the second installment, The Pirouettes That Angels Spin will be following this winter.  In addition to writing novels about vampires, angels, and demons, she writes and posts Phantom of the Opera stories online and has even had the honor of having them translated into German and Russian for worldwide fans.  Due to the wonderful support of her Phantom “phans”, she released a first collection of her stories called Manifestations of a Phantom’s Soul this past summer and intends to follow it up with a second volume sometime next year. The other side of her life is a passion for music; she’s also a trained opera singer with a Bachelor of Music from Saint Xavier University in Chicago.  She’s won various awards and accolades in the Chicagoland area and has portrayed the roles as Sister Genevieve in Suor Angelica, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.  She goes from writing at 4AM to practicing for her next performances at 7AM and then onward to being a full time wife and mom with a 6 year old, a 3 year old, and a baby on the way.  One would call her life insane, but she likes to think of it as “full”.