Sally Hemings
Seaton wrote the libretto for the solo opera "From the Diary of Sally Hemings" (2001) for the composer William Bolcom. The fictional work is a depiction of the innermost thoughts of Sarah "Sally" Hemings, an enslaved woman of mixed race who is believed to have had a sexual relationship with Thomas Jefferson. Bolcom asked Seaton to create "diary" entries that would provide the text for his song cycle "From The Diary of Sally Hemings". Seaton spent more than a year doing research to create a "diary" that would be historically plausible. As David Lewman pointed out in an article on Seaton's libretto, "It was a challenge. Though there is voluminous material on Jefferson and his period, there are no surviving examples of writing by Sally Hemings." The work was commissioned by mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar, who sang the piece at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, and other similar venues. In 2010, soprano Alyson Cambridge performed "From the Diary of Sally Hemings" at Carnegie Hall.