MICHAEL UNGER’S SELECTED PRESS QUOTES – OPERA
(Click on image to see production stills and more reviews.)
THE CRUCIBLE @ Sarasota Opera
Courage of all kinds marks ‘The Crucible’ at Sarasota Opera – Robert Ward’s compelling opera based on Arthur Miller’s powerful play about the infamous Salem witch trials of the 1690′s honors both political and artistic courage, a quality made abundantly clear in the production which made its debut Saturday evening. This is music drama of great power, presented by a large and exemplary company of fine singers under the… intense stage direction by Michael Unger. (Sarasota Herald Tribune)
Michael Unger, who came to the opera after years of directing plays, gives a sense of reality to his staging… my favorite production of the company’s winter season. (Sarasota Herald Tribune – follow up article)
Sarasota Opera revival of ‘The Crucible’ is both familiar and scintillating. Sarasota Opera has revived the work in an excellent, often stirring production to launch its American Classics Series. (St. Petersburg Times)
Sarasota Opera season highlighted by brilliant “Crucible”.
This powerful opera, which was given a strikingly brilliant performance, goes to the heart of this company’s success. Nine studio artists and eight apprentice artists were in the full cast of 21 singers, and enormous risk in casting terms. But it was a production that ranks in the top level of professional regional opera. Everyone was first-rate in acting, voice and diction. Stage director Michael Unger stayed close to Miller’s drama and made it wholly believable… the highlight of the weekend operas I saw. (Palm Beach Arts Paper)
Director Michael Unger has brought us a traditional production that transports us to the stark realities of the 1690s when people plowed and seeded a land that seemed “the size of a continent when you go foot by foot sowing new seed.” Unger’s characters [are] so real they could easily be your next door neighbors. (Longboat Observer)
The Sarasota “Crucible” was among the finest I’ve ever witnessed and heard. And over the years and attendance at many productions I have learned that no one deserves more credit for that than the Stage Director. Thanks to you, all the the nuances of Arthur Miller’s play in the opera were realized by the splendid cast in their performances and by the fine ovation by audience at the final curtain. May many more audiences have the benefit of your fine direction of future performances. With admiration and gratitude, Robert Ward. (From the composer)
THE CONSUL @ Opera NJ
OPERA REVIEW: BreathlessOpera New Jersey mounts stunning production of Menotti’s ‘The Consul’
It’s a moment that happens only in opera, really, and helps to define the difference between sung and spoken drama. The singer, having poured out her heart and soul, having given all she has got to give, arrives breathless at the end of particularly poignant aria — in this case, an aria intended not to amuse, not to delight, but to transfigure the listener with, well, nothing less than the truth of a desperate woman’s existence. The swell of the orchestra subsides. There’s a profound silence. You could hear a pin drop. Then a smattering of applause -— and the audience suddenly lets loose with a l-o-n-g roar that sounds like it might blow off the roof of McCarter Theatre. Opera New Jersey repeats its astonishingly persuasive production on Sunday, July 24, at 2 p.m. All I can tell you is, be there. Michael Unger’s stage direction was generally so deft as to be virtually invisible. This observation is not intended as a left-handed compliment; it recognizes that the stage action of The Consul is meant to look utterly natural, aside from a few instances. When a stage director succeeds in this challenge people say, “So where was the stage direction?” (Princeton Packet)
“Director Michael Unger culled nuanced acting from the cast. Opera New Jersey had the audience on its feet for a roaring and richly deserved standing ovation.” (Newark Star Ledger)
“The circumstances of Menotti’s The Consul involve a woman openly struggling to help her sick baby and freedom-fighting husband escape repression – heroism most apparent to those who lived in the early-1950s era when the opera was written. Much of the opening-night audience was of an age to have been aware of the postwar totalitarian crackdown in much of Europe, which may account for the cathartic ovations. …with the considerable virtues of the well-mounted production, conducted by Joel Revzen and staged by Michael Unger… the casting is as musically and theatrically adept as one could hope for.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Opera New Jersey’s production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul” transforms a grim situation into a dramatic torrent that provokes questions about love, freedom, devotion, heroism, and compassion. Once again ONJ’s habitual marriage of artistic excellence to superb stagecraft produces a taut vehicle. Director Michael Unger lays bare the tumultuous emotional world that seethes below the lives of characters with constricted choices. Shifts between apartment and consulate are accomplished through sleekly choreographed movements in semi-darkness by members of the ensemble. The audience on Saturday, July 16, interrupted the performance by an extended ovation; the applause could not be stifled. Viewed 60 years after its opening, “The Consul” raises questions anew. ONJ’s “The Consul” is a must-see. It raises profound questions about relationships, life, and politics. (US-1)
It’s almost inconceivable that any new opera today could enjoy the combination of critical and popular success that greeted Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Consul” at its premiere in 1950. Opening in a Broadway theater, rather than an opera house, it ran for an astonishing 269 performances. Menotti, who wrote both the score and the English-language libretto, won the Pulitzer Prize for music and the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for best musical. But Menotti’s works have long since fallen out of fashion. So an admirable production of “The Consul” by Opera New Jersey at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton — marking the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth — provided a rare chance to hear his first full-length opera. Director Michael Unger kept the action moving smoothly between the Sorels’ apartment and the consulate. (AP News)
LA RODINE @ Sarasota Opera
The Quartet from Puccini's la Rondine
“As Sarasota Opera’s strong new production of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Rondine” (The Swallow) surged across the stage Saturday evening, it was difficult to justify its neglect by major opera companies. Stage Director Michael Unger kept the lovers’ tumultuous emotions in tight focus.” (Sarasota Herald Tribune)
“The Sarasota Opera’s new production of La rondine is so breathtakingly beautiful from the creative, innovative staging by Michael Unger that one can’t help but sigh with the romance of it all. It’s as rich and colorful as a Manet, and as heart-stopping beautiful as a Shakespeare Sonnet.” (Longboat Observer)
“Sometimes called “a poor man’s ‘Traviata’” because of parallels in plot, director Michael Unger proved that La Rondine is anything but; it is an opera to be taken seriously for its own merits. One hopes that the excellence of the SO staging will lead other companies to consider the work. (Opera Today)
L’AMICO FRITZ @ Sarasota Opera
Benjamin Warchowski and Catherine Cangiano
To put it bluntly, this three-act opera, directed with strength and understanding by Michael Unger was so appealing, we were left wondering why it’s not performed more often. Unger’s was the first we’ve seen that made the ethnicity of the characters clear. Unger’s characterizations made sense and added to the warmth of the people populating the opera. This production is terrific. (Longboat Observer)
DIE FLEDERMAUS at Sarasota Opera
Julie Makarov and Sean Anderson
“A delicious feast for both eyes and ears. This production has it all in spades. Superb stage direction by Michael Unger included physical comedy and pratfalls executed cleanly with great effect. The cast managed to keep pace with both the musical and acting demands brilliantly. From start to finish, the Sarasota Opera has produced a winner…” (Sarasota Herald Tribune)
“This production, directed by Michael Unger, is effervescent, delicious and totally delightful; bringing joyful guffaws in the theatre and happy hums outside. Unger is gloriously surefooted – he has artfully walked the dangerously thin line between broad comedy and philosophical observations. His direction draws out an honesty of feeling that’s often lacking in broad comedies. This “Fledermaus” is batting a thousand.” (Longboat Observer)
“A finer production is hard to imagine” (Venice Gondolier)
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (Opera) At Vertical Player Repertory
William Browning and Cast
Thrilling theatre. The set made you feel scrunched into a claustrophobic kitchen to the point of explosion, just as the characters are on stage. The chorus got on and off stage in amazing style. I wish they’d give lessons on movement to the chorus at the Met. The skill with which they slide on or scuttle off into the cramped edges of the scaffolded VPR set is not the least extraordinary thing about Michael Unger’s vivid direction. The cast put over a riveting account of the play. At VPR all the voices were big and in tune and hardly seemed “operatic,” so natural and intense was the acting. – (Opera Today)
A year ago October I was brought to rehearse and to see a pocket production of an opera I composed (words by Arnold Weinstein and Arthur Miller of course), A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Originally conceived for Lyric Opera of Chicago (a venue almost as large as the Met) and full orchestra, here was a tiny theater in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn that would barely hold 40 to see it, and with only two pianos. A very old friend was quite doubtful it all would work, but I insisted she come to the opening. The Vertical Players would amaze us all, not least because of the excellent direction by one Michael Unger, with a consistently top-notch cast; the two pianists strove valiantly to make up for 78 players in size and largely succeeded. But what particularly impressed my doubting friend was that the impact of the opera survived even in such conditions. I’ve been the victim of two misconceived productions because of directors’ notions indulged in which screw up poor Arthur’s play and my opera. What I admired was the clarity and modesty of Unger’s production, which gave value to the writing in both music and word. (From Composer, William Bolcom)
