I will come to you in the black of the night” (Miller 113). And to Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. Abigail commands to the girls on what to say to the community and threatens them, “….we danced. Abigail led the girls to dance naked in the woods, and was the first one to accuse Tituba of witchcraft. She was the ring leader of the other teenage girls in the town. This culture of chasing demons and placing blame is responsible for the tragedies that unfold.Ībigail Williams started the events that led the Salem Witch Trials. Together, these three characters represent the culture in the town. Two other men play an instrumental role in what unfolds in the story Judge Dan Danforth and Thomas Putman. However, she is just a child who does not have the moral decision making skills of an adult. Abigail is selfish, manipulative, and concerned only with your own image. She is the first one to make an accusation and led the girls on their lying rampage. 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.In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller it is very easy to cast all the blame on Abigail Williams for the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials.
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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