Programme Notes

Prologue: Two Households is a setting of the opening sonnet from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and was commissioned by Michael Borowitz, artistic director of Cleveland Concert Opera, to open CCO's production of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, in collaboration with the Singers' Club of Cleveland.

In the classic story, the two feuding families cannot see eye-to-eye though their views are not entirely dissimilar. This setting musically reflects this opposition on many levels: the pervasive use of the interval of a second (almost a unison, but not quite); the use of two contrasting primary tempi; the division of the full choir into two smaller choirs; the use of canonic and echo effects, where the parts follow each other but rarely come together; and through music of two dramatically opposing characters, one angry and defiant, the other gentle and introspective. Two households, both alike in dignity,