Bel Canto
Ann Patchett

From the back cover:

"Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots. Friendship, Compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion... and cannot be stopped."

Quotes from the book:

"Everything that Mr. Hosokawa had ever known or suspected about the way life worked had been proven to him to be incorrect these past months. Where before there had been endless hours of work, negotiations and compromises, there were now chess games with a terrorist for whom he felt an unaccountable fondness. Where there had been a respectable family that functioned in the highest order, there were now people he loved and could not speak to. Where there had been a few minutes of opera on a stereo at bedtime, there were now hours of music every day, the living warmth of voice in all its perfection and fallibility, a woman in possession of that voice who sat beside him laughing, holding his hand. The rest of the world believed that Mr. Hosokawa suffered and he would never be able to expain to them how that was not the case."

And this one:

"Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don't you think? It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greates soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see."