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Ward: The Crucible / Buckley, Ebert, Kelly, Nyc Opera


Release Date: 10/24/2006 
Label:  Albany Records   Catalog #: 25/6   Spars Code: ADD 
Composer:  Robert Ward
Performer:  Marija Kova,  Elizabeth Schwering,  Norman Kelly,  Gloria Wynder,   ... 
Conductor:  Emerson Buckley
Orchestra/Ensemble:  New York City Opera Orchestra,  New York City Opera Chorus
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 1 Hours 50 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

The only American opera to win a Pulitzer Prize. 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. The opera had been commissioned by the New York City Opera. 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. 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 Crucible, play and opera, draws upon the frenzy and anguish of the witch-hunt that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in the Read more 1690s. Eminent divines, such as Cotton Mather and the Reverend Hale, supplied ample theological proof for the existence of witches. 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.

R E V I E W S:

"Robert Ward's The Crucible was warmly received on its first production in New York in 1961, and it has since been very widely performed, not only in the United States...Ward's music is swift moving and gratefully lyrical. His language owes a lot to the American vernacular of his teachers Howard Hanson and Aaron Copland...and something also to an operatic vernacular rooted in Puccini...There is a certain cragginess, too, drawn partly from very careful word-setting of Miller's archaizing text and very apt for evoking the starched rigor of a closed and in-turned community, that seems to be Ward's own...This one was made not long after the first performance, by the company that created it; under Emerson Buckley's direction there is a crackling sense of pace and of stage-seasoned ensemble." (Gramophone)
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Works on This Recording

1. The Crucible by Robert Ward
Performer:  Marija Kova (Soprano), Elizabeth Schwering (Alto), Norman Kelly (Tenor),
Gloria Wynder (Alto), Eunice Alberts (Alto), Nancy Foster (Soprano),
Naomi Farr (Soprano), Maurice Stern (Tenor), Patricia Brooks (Soprano),
Chester Ludgin (Baritone), John Macurdy (Bass), Paul Ukena (Baritone),
Spiro Malas (Bass), Jack DeLon (Tenor), Lorna Ceniceros (Soprano),
Helen Guile (Alto), Beverly Evans (Soprano), Joyce Ebert (Mezzo Soprano),
Frances Bible (Mezzo Soprano), Richard Krause (Tenor)
Conductor:  Emerson Buckley
Orchestra/Ensemble:  New York City Opera Orchestra,  New York City Opera Chorus
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1961; USA 
 Length: 110 Minutes 0 Secs. 
Language: English 

Sound Samples

The Crucible: Act I: Beginning: My Betty be hearty soon? (Tituba, Parris, Abigail, Ann, Thomas, Rebecca, Giles)
The Crucible: Act I: Gently, sirs, gently. (Rebecca, Thomas, John, Giles, Francis, Parris, Putnams)
The Crucible: Act I: Jesus my consolation, Thee do I worship. (Abigail, Parris, Thomas, Ann, Francis, Rebecca, Hale)
The Crucible: Act I: For much in the world seems Devil's work (Hale, Parris, Ann, Rebecca, Tituba, Abigail, Francis, Thomas)
The Crucible: Act I: Oh, how many times, Mr. Parris, the Devil bid me kill you! (Tituba, Ann, Hale)
The Crucible: Act I: Jesus my consolation, Thee do I worship, Thee do I trust (Abigail)
The Crucible: Act II: Beginning: What keeps you so late? (Elizabeth, John)
The Crucible: Act II: I've forgotten Abigail, do you understand? (John, Elizabeth)
The Crucible: Act II: But ah the dreams I had for our proud young love, a love that would never turn or falter. (Elizabeth, Mary, John)
The Crucible: Act II: He will. He sentenced her... but not Sarah Good - for Sarah Good confessed that she compacted with the Devil (Mary, John, Elizabeth, Hale, Cheever)
The Crucible: Act II: You will go to that court with me. (John, Mary)
The Crucible: Act III: Beginning: John, John, I knew you'd come back to me. (Abigail, John)
The Crucible: Act III: In the Courtroom: Hear ye, hear ye! (Cheever)
The Crucible: Act III: Open Thou my lips, O Lord (Danforth, Cheever, Thomas, Giles, Parris)
The Crucible: Act III: She comes to tell you this: these girls never saw a spirit (John, Parris, Thomas, Danforth, Mary, Abigail, Elizabeth, Girls)
The Crucible: Act III: No, no, it is a natural lie to tell. (Hale, Danforth, Abigail, Mary, John, Girls, Ann, Parris, Thomas, Francis)
The Crucible: Act IV: Beginning: The Devil say he's coming, to set his people free (Tituba, Cheever, Abigail)
The Crucible: Act IV: But sir, you stir rebellion. (Hale, Danforth, Parris, Cheever, Elizabeth)
The Crucible: Act IV: What word of the children? (John, Elizabeth, Hale, Parris, Thomas, Danforth, Rebecca)
The Crucible: Act IV: God does not need my name nailed up on the church door. (John, Danforth, Hale, Parris, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Chorus of Villagers)

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