Block tridiagonal reduction of perturbed normal and rank structured matrices

It is well known that if a matrix $A\in\mathbb C^{n\times n}$ solves the matrix equation $f(A,A^H)=0$, where $f(x, y)$ is a linear bivariate polynomial, then $A$ is normal; $A$ and $A^H$ can be simultaneously reduced in a finite number of operations to tridiagonal form by a unitary congruence and, moreover, the spectrum of $A$ is located on a straight line in the complex plane. In this paper we present some generalizations of these properties for almost normal matrices which satisfy certain quadratic matrix equations arising in the study of structured eigenvalue problems for perturbed Hermitian and unitary matrices.