Paper Puppet Opera is a new way of experiencing opera and classical vocal music. We present a mixture of forgotten operas, sacred music, cantatas, choral pieces, art songs, and arias with live singers and instrumentalists. The instrumentation might often be rather strange, and sometimes completely electronic. Right now we have a trio that consists of keyboards/synthesizer, flute, and cello. The actors are puppets, all made of paper. This includes shadow puppets, large paper toy theaters, and whatever else we can dream up. We envision sacred music in a new way, focusing on the abstract and surreal aspects, and create striking tableaux with moving characters for hilarious productions of old comic operas.

Our test run of Mozart's The Goose of Cairo in August, 2015 was a huge success, so we really went for it and put on a full opera in a much larger venue. In September 2016 we put on the long forgotten opera The Isle of Merlin by Gluck with much improved technique and technology. Potential collaborations for future productions are being pursued along with many other ideas. If you would like to add shadow puppets to your event, show, concert, or whatever please contact us.

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Personnel

Juliana Brandon is the founder of Paper Puppet Opera: designing and creating the puppets herself. She is also a soprano opera clown  known for her operatic renditions of pop songs and as Seattle’s own “human theremin.” She is the founder of Operadisiac, a surrealist opera vaudeville/burlesque troupe. She is also a frequent soloist with The Seattle Bach Choir, and has performed with Opera Jupiter; Octava Chamber Orchestra; Pure Cirkus; Zappa Early Renaissance Orchestra; and puppet master, Brian Kooser. 

Juliana is also a visual artist specializing in colored pencil drawings on decorative papers and doilies, with an occasional foray into larger media. She was chosen to design Basstronaut for The Museum of Flight's Astronauts on the Town in 2015. You can see more of her artwork here.

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Isle of Merlin Cast

Pierrot: Ben Grover
Scapin/Le Notaire: David Hoffman
Le Philosophe/Le Chevalier/Hanif/flute: Nathan Shiu
La Candeur/Merlin/Zerbin: Ian Loney
Argentine: Melissa Young
Diamantine/Hippocratine: Juliana Brandon

Keyboards: Peter Nelson-King
Flute/ukulele/turkey baster: Karen Luke-Fildes
More flute: Nathan Shiu
Cello: Ellen Jeanne Kilcup
Banjo: Nina deWolf

Puppeteers:
Daniel Maret, Katherine Klang, Monica Barroga, Sara Girganoff

​Super titles: Layne Benofsky