He was a wild child living on his own during the Cultural Revolution, forced to labor in a factory for seven years, and was nearly thrown out of a music program for wiggling his hips like Elvis in performance.

After his parents were themselves sent away and he was on his own, he taught himself to play accordion and entertained schoolmates and then his often-illiterate factory mates in the Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team.

Just before Mao's death, he tricked his way into a voice training program, and ultimately left China during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign of the mid-80s, to earn a master's degree at the University of Denver.

Not until Tian was 38 and had found his one true love did he first gain a footing in the opera world; his first job was at the Met, where he has sung every year since 1991.

Inevitably the book draws the reader back to China, where Tian, now an American citizen, attempts to rescue young artists from today's gritty realities there and to understand for himself the baffling changes that have taken place since he departed.