Roger Waters [ tickets ] has announced a new leg of his "In the Flesh" tour, covering amphitheaters and arenas in 25 cities. Tickets in several cities go on sale this weekend. Waters has also revealed that he is working on a new rock album and said that the recording and writing of "Ca Ira," his French/English opera, is progressing.

The music for the tour will include songs from the Pink Floyd catalog and material from the ex-Floyd bassist's solo albums "The Pros & Cons Of Hitch-Hiking" and "Amused to Death," according to his record label Columbia. The stage show will be the same large-scale setup that he used on last year's 20-city tour. Backing musicians have not yet been confirmed.

A live album from the tour will be released in the fall, a Columbia representative said. In a chat session last night (3/14), Waters wrote that he will film his tour, and was examining techniques and camera direction used in other music movies, presumably to figure out how he wanted his tour shot.

Waters wrote that he also has a rock record in the works, but it could be a year before it's ready. The band, which has already laid down some material, is the same as his last touring band: guitarist Andy Fairweather-Low, guitarist Snowy White, guitarist Doyle Brahamhall II, drummer Graham Broad, keyboardists John Carin and Andy Wallis, and singers Katie Kissoon and P.P. Arnold.

Last fall, Waters wrote on his website that the album would be concerned with philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility--and he asked his fans to post their views on the questions. Writing about the project in the chat session, Waters connected the project to "The Wall" and the communication potential of the Internet:

"'The Wall' was about alienation and it's only by each of us as individuals understanding that we're all in the same boat as individuals--and that is likely to happen via our communications with the [I]nternet--that we will stand a chance of establishing an overview of the economic and religious dogmas that in a general sense fragment our world, and at a personal level can snuff out our individual lights."

Regarding "Ca Ira," Waters wrote that the orchestral and choral recordings are finished, and he will complete the baritone parts later this year. In a few days, he will go to Paris to record with soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves for the English version of the work. No release date for the project has been set, though he said that his record company wanted to wait until September to record and film a performance of the opera.

Waters said that he would not tour with his own version of "The Wall" because the show was too complex. He mentioned that he had been asked to perform it last July 4 at the Indianapolis Speedway as a free show, which appealed to him.

"However, as I looked further into this free concert idea," he wrote, "I discovered the concert would actually be paid for by Corporate America like Coca-Cola or AOL and they would want control of the way their tickets were distributed, so it would be like I was working for some big corporation, like buy two crates of Coke and get two tickets--it's not quite the same."