Event

Paper Puppet Opera

Paper Puppet Opera is a brand new company devoted to opera productions enacted with shadow puppets and other forms of paper puppetry. This is our inaugural production, and we are proud to present a long lost opera from 1758 called "The Isle of Merlin: or The World Reversed" by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the composer of "Orfeo ed Euridice".

Shadow puppets will guide you on a tour of a distant island where everything is backwards from the way it is here. Lawyers are honest, the wealthy can't marry each other, and philosophers are drunken party animals.

This production is the first to restore all the ancient French vaudeville songs which were part of the original score. These are French folk songs which were used as recitative with new words between the original pieces Gluck composed.

We are pleased to present this opera with live local singers and instrumentalists. The "orchestra" consists of synthesizer, flute, cello, and banjo with copious sound effects.

Production is in French with English supertitles. While this is a puppet show, it is also an opera and may not be suitable for very young children. Bring children under 5 at your own discretion.