Robert Ward's The Crucible was commissioned by the New York City Opera in 1961 and is based directly on the Arthur Miller play, with the libretto by Bernard Stambler. The play, written in 1953, was inspired by the McCarthy witch-hunt of the 50s. The opera won the Pulitzer Prize and a New York Music Critics Circle Citation. A recording of the opera was released in 1961 and this has been the only existing recording of the work until now. Ward himself expressed his desire to have a modern recording of the work to producer John Ostendorf. Purchase Opera, with its deep roster of fine young professional singers and its collaboration with the Purchase Symphony and conductor Hugh Murphy, proved the right fit for this new recording. Ward systematically employs idiosyncratic harmonic language and melodic motifs to create distinct musical landscapes for each of the opera's characters. These landscapes reveal much about each character, sometimes even more than their words do.