Elizabeth: Choreographer Notes

Roman Mykyta, Choreographer

INSPIRATION:

I was introduced, through conversation with my father, to Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821).  Through a little research I came to learn that she is a prominent figure in both Maryland history and Women’s history, and an inspirational exemplar of perseverance, faithfulness, strength in the face of hardship and true servant leadership.  She was the first person, man or woman, born in the United States, to be canonized as a Saint in the Catholic Church.  

Her life was marked with loss and hardships, yet she rose above them to heal others.  Born in New York in 1774, she lost her mother and a sibling when she was only three years old.  She married at 19 and had five children before losing her husband to tuberculosis, becoming a widow at 28.  Born to Episcopal parents, she converted to Catholicism after her husband’s death, was disinherited and subjected to anti-Catholic prejudice in New York, making it difficult to provide for her children. She left New York for Maryland where she took her vows and founded the Sisters of Charity, the first Catholic Sisterhood in the United States.  Her Sisters of Charity were dedicated to the care of children of the poor and she established the first free school for girls in the United States .  She went on to found the first parochial school in the United States in Emmitsburg, MD.  She is recognized as the founder of the parochial school system in the United States and is an inductee into both the Maryland and the National Women's Hall of Fame.  

Upon researching the amazing story and work of St Elizabeth Ann Seton, I was inspired to create a short ballet in honor of her life, as 2025 marks the 50th Anniversary of her canonization.  I have coordinated with Nicole Kelsch, the Artistic Director of the Annapolis based Ballet Theatre of Maryland, (Maryland’s Premier Professional Ballet Company), to include the piece as part of their mixed repertoire showcase, Momentum, on Friday, February 21, 2025 and Saturday, February 22, 2025, at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, MD.

CHOREOGRAPHIC APPROACH:

My research for this effort drew from sources available through the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton website on her life and works, and reading the very well sourced book by author Catherine O’Donnell, Elizabeth Seton: American Saint.  

Because this piece will be one of a few pieces featured in the mixed repertoire program, I am limited to approximately 30 minutes.  WIth this time limitation, the work of shaping my libretto required thoughtful consideration on which parts of her story to highlight to deliver both the historical summary of her life, but more importantly, the transformative elements, in a compelling and entertaining way.

I have researched and selected music by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi because of particular elements in the music that reflect chapters in the life of St Elizabeth Ann Seton.  The piece will be 32 minutes, and will be entitled, Elizabeth.

CREATIVE PROCESS: TONE AND STYLE

My full creative process for developing choreography takes several steps and it is worth noting that these steps do not occur linearly, nor can they be succinctly described with words. Choreography for me is like a puzzle; sometimes a few unrelated sections initially come forward into focus and by developing each of them individually the necessary elements to connect them harmoniously come into view. 

Before considering the first step of the choreographic text (sequence of steps), I really try to immerse myself into the details of the subject matter while being sensitive to the expressive content, which will readily translate into artistic material. Through the creative process, conducting further research is always necessary to refine the choreography and coach the dancers with as much nuance and sensitivity as possible. However, in the beginning, I conducted enough research to articulate moments that need to happen in the choreography as well as the tone and style that best suits the subject matter. In the case of Elizabeth, I began a rough draft of which moments in her life to present onstage. I also intuited that the events and arc of her story are reminiscent of contemporary Georgian Era romantic novels, such as the works by Jane Austen. There are elements of societal pressures, deeply felt romances and losses and a transcendent arc of transformation. It became clear that the tone of the piece should be reminiscent of such novels. Furthermore, the subject matter readily adapts into definitive and useful styles for ballet choreography. This era of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s life included artistic trends in both Classicism and Romanticism; Ballet as an artform has used, developed and combined these styles throughout its choreographic history, so the creation of an Elizabeth ballet may easily build upon this traditional foundation. 

CREATIVE PROCESS: SELECTING MUSIC

After establishing a list of key events along with a sense of tone and style, I look for music, because the music will ultimately guide how the events are paced and staged. In some of my previous experiences, as with The Little Slippers, based on a Ukrainian Folk tale by Nikolai Gogol, I adapted the ballet’s libretto from the source material in order to better serve the music. For me, choosing the right music for a piece is like choosing a spouse; it should harmoniously match the core of the piece. I rely on Michel Fokine’s fifth principle when choosing the music. He described how music should be chosen chiefly for its expressive and evocative content. He went on to describe how music should not be chosen necessarily for predictable dance rhythms, rather, the integrity of a piece rests in furnishing every detail to harmoniously express the central ideas and tone of the piece. Certainly, if there is pre-existing music for subject matter, he would encourage using such music. In my previous experience choreographing Macbeth, I chose Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem based on the same subject matter. In reality, there are other compositions for Macbeth by Arthur Sullivan and Giuseppe Verdi, which employ simpler dance rhythms, but I opted for Richard Strauss’s score because it best matched the dramatic intensity and general tone of the play the best, albeit through frankly wild rhythmic complexity. 

In the case of Elizabeth Ann Seton, there is no (appropriately secular) musical composition devoted to her explicitly. I perceived two choices: to use contemporary music from her time; or to opt with another composer whose worthy composition about related subject matter could be argued to belong to Elizabeth’s subject matter. Very early on I considered Ottorino Respighi. I was first exposed to Respighi’s music after seeing an original ballet at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Kyiv, Ukraine based on the life of Julius Caesar. The score employed Respighi’s Carnivals of Rome, Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome and his one-act score for The Queen of Sheba. Needless to say, I admired the ballet for many reasons, among them the incredibly dynamic and evocative score. Since then, I had researched more compositions by Respighi, discovering how he wrote several ballets from the Ballet Russes era, in addition to several evocative non-theatrical pieces.  In my mental rolodex, I thought of him as a great 20th Century Composer who emphasized Italian subject matter and the use of the violin and considered using him when the time would be right. As I reviewed my list of events in Elizabeth Ann Seton’s life, I was intrigued to find on my list several scenes which take place in Italy and the noteworthy fact that her husband was the first American to own a Stradivarius violin. I turned to Respighi’s compositions and opted to focus on two noteworthy compositions which had Catholic, devotional subject matter, certainly appropriate music in depicting the life of a Catholic Saint. I considered his 30-minute symphonic poem Church Windows, but this music seemed so evocative of the specific subject matter, I opted to focus on his Violin Concerto Gregoriano, based on melodies of Gregorian Chant. This Concerto came to the forefront because the violin would be central and ready for meaningful scenes. It also seemed appropriate to have a score derived from Gregorian Chant because it would give the whole piece a devotional character, which was personally meaningful for me in depicting the life of a Saint. Respighi’s score is also very touching because it maintains three main Gregorian melodies but takes them through several themes and variations, some of which are quite dramatic and anxious. For me, this matches the characterization of a Saint’s life, which has a prevailing, transcendent arc but may also be characterized with chapters of raw suffering. While creating the ballet, I want to both tell Elizabeth’s story with great reverence and awe but also emphasize her humanity and painful struggles, making her accessible for the ballet audience in the same way she remains to her devotees. Even though the creation of Gregorian Chant predates Elizabeth’s life, it remains part of the large Catholic tradition that Elizabeth both encountered and entered. For all of these reasons, the Violin Concerto Gregoriano became my choice.

CREATIVE PROCESS: CHOREOGRAPHIC VISION AND SHAPING THE LIBRETTO

Now after choosing the Concerto Gregoriano as my score, it would guide the actual pacing and staging of scenes and by extension, the libretto. Immediately, when first listening to the music, I could imagine certain scenes from Elizabeth’s life, lining up with the expressive quality of the music. The tone of the music could match the “Jane Austen” quality I was hoping to achieve. Stylistically the music belongs to the Neo-Romantic or “Impressionist” Era, but the virtuosic writing for violin and the Gregorian melodies also lends the piece a sense of Classicism. Sometimes, I feel as if Respighi had been commissioned to write a score for Elizabeth Ann Seton’s life, he couldn’t have come up with a better score. In Movements I & II the Gregorian tones and harmonies certainly lend the music a sense of Medieval Europe, appropriate for the scenes in Italy, where Elizabeth first encounters the Catholic tradition in its full grandeur. However the tone and harmony of the third “Hallelujah” movement inexplicably can pass as something robustly American; this section could pass as a composition by Aaron Copland. I’ve played the score for several close friends and relations, and everyone understands that these scenes take place in the USA and feels the music to be fitting. The expressive arc of this movement, actually inspired the shape of the libretto to expand in a new direction. About a year ago, I first encountered the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rosetti at an exhibit and was moved by one of his paradigmatic works “Found;”a Hugo-esque scene, depicting a fallen woman who looks away in shame as she is “found” by a country drover, understood to be her former sweetheart. This painting epitomizes the Humanism of the 19th Century and indeed offers shade of Jean Valjean encountering the fallen Fantine in Les Misérables; however, based on the originality of such an iconic image, I resolved to eventually create a choreography, which would culminate in a re-creation of that moment. I have similarly done that in Macbeth, re-creating several iconic paintings, especially of Lady Macbeth in poses derived from works by Fuseli and Sargent. The music of this Hallelujah Movement seemed to more clearly tell that arc and I was inspired to flesh out the details by similar scenarios from the musicals Carousel and  Les Misérables. In the end, after re-creating the moment with the Country Drover, the fallen woman would be taken to the Sisters of Charity for safety through the winter and receive counseling from Mother Seton through her grief, heartbreak and distress. Mother Seton would offer counseling by drawing on her own experiences, and the ballet would continue as a retrospective of Mother Seton’s own life, remembering her own joys of love, which left her similarly heartbroken because of her husband’s death. Mother Seton can continue to empathize with feelings of isolation in the way she felt rejected by her New York community after her conversion to Catholicism and for the added heartbreak of her children growing up, with some falling into trouble and others succumbing to sickness and death. However, Mother Seton’s Spiritual Peace, allows her vision to penetrate beyond the immediate suffering and find steadfast Hope through her Faith. This story and perspective refreshes the soul of the younger woman and culminates in her soul’s renewal and joyful transformation. This instinct felt right to me because the effect of a Saint’s presence can be seen in the way she transforms other lives around her. This reminded me of the quote by renowned 18th century Russian Orthodox starets, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, “Acquire a Spirit of Peace and a thousand around you will be saved.” I think this added layer offered a clearer way to show the effect of Elizabeth’s saintly presence, especially for ballet. There is also historical precedent; this fallen woman could be a composite of two real-life women who joined Mother Seton’s convent, Sister Harriet and Sister Xavier. However, this character’s name will be Fanny Cornforth, named after the model who posed for Rossetti's painting. 

Historically, this Concerto did not enjoy the same popularity as Respighi’s other works; some critics suggest that the beginning is almost too cerebral to catch the audience from the beginning. I similarly felt that, at least for a ballet, there are moments where the same tone is extended too long. Continuing in the tradition of Michel Fokine, as he did in Scherazade, I am comfortable making edits to a score (especially a score not originally written for ballet) especially when it comes to dramatic pacing. Just like Fokine’s work in Scheherazade, I reorder some sections of the movements where there are clean breaks in the music anyway. The score now starts with the “Hallelujah” Movement and tells the story of Fanny Cornforth through her entrance into the Sisters of Charity and first meeting with Mother Seton, which is fraught with grief and emotional anxiety. Mother Seton begins offering her perspective and experiences, and at an appropriate break in the music the score returns to its classic beginning, playing through Movement I & II without any interruptions. As Mother Seton finishes offering her perspective, Movement II comes to a close. The score shifts to the unused end of the “Hallelujah” Movement III, the coda, which creates the necessary resonance with the beginning of the score and as this melody enjoys its final development, Fanny Cornforth’s character enjoys a type of dance-monologue basking in her spiritual renewal. 

CREATIVE PROCESS: MOVEMENT VOCABULARY AND DANCE STYLES

Now that I am comfortable with my choice of music, I become as specific and detail-oriented as possible to assign exact scenes to exact measures of the music and essentially develop a complete libretto. When it comes to creating the choreographic text, I value very rhythmic choreography that matches the bass of the music. I maintain that most audiences enjoy choreography when they can feel the same accents in the musical vibrations while they sit in their seat as they can see the dancers match with their steps. I understand that audiences enjoy watching dance when they can identify with the dancers. The expressive performances are key for this, but keeping the audience invested in each moment, I maintain, is best achieved by keeping their attention through the rhythmic marriage of the music and the movement. All of that being said, I will no doubt employ nuances, and the music is full of nuances and some unrhythmic more cadenza-like sections. However, even these sections have some pulsing touchstones and it will be even that much more important to marry these musical moments to appropriate movement, in order to keep the audience feeling and investing in every moment. I also create choreographic text based on each individual character. I do not always use pointework in a ballet if it doesn’t seem appropriate to subject matter or the individual character. However, in this case, because of the spiritual dimension, I believe the use of pointework will be appropriate. Pointework helps when the subject matter of the choreography should transcend reality, and it will be very useful in characterizing several of the main female characters and expressing their full arcs. Indeed, the characters who express a spiritual arc will be given choreographic text with a classical base but imbued with the capacity to be maximally expressive. According to the principles of Michel Fokine, it will use a movement vocabulary developed beyond the ballet d’ecole. For the corps de ballet characters, who will help to establish the settings both in the USA and Italy, there will be some allusions to American courtship dances from the late 18th-early 19th century along with Italian Folk Dance, a tarantella. 

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