When the young girls of a closed religious sect are discovered experimenting with devil-worship in the woods they try to save themselves by denouncing neighbours as witches and satanists. However, in the actual conduct of the witch-hunts the real motives were as likely to be greed, local animosities, and sexual repression as obedience to the Biblical admonition, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Though the composer and librettist have not utilized any texts or musical material from the period, they have, through the use of rugged hymn-like melodies and tunes almost like folk song in character, managed to convey the feelings and atmosphere of the time.Without a doubt one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, takes on an unnerving air of topicality in our terrorist age.

Eminent divines, such as Cotton Mather and the Reverend Hale, supplied ample theological proof for the existence of witches.

The Crucible, play and opera, draws upon the frenzy and anguish of the witch-hunt that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690s. In the days that followed, the press was almost unanimous in their high praise of the work and at the close of the 1961-62 season, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The libretto and score were written in less than a year, the last page of the full score having been completed just 11 days before the first performance on October 26, 1961. The opera had been commissioned by the New York City Opera. When the final curtain fell and the last notes of the orchestra died away on the opening night of The Crucible, an excited audience thundered its approval.

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