Intelligence, an opera by Jake Haggie and Gene Scheer, deals with the emotional load of two Virginia women, one white and the other a fair-skinned Black, as they run a spy network to feed Confederate information to the Union army during the Civil War. On February 15, 2026, at the George Mason University Center for the Arts in Fairfax, Virginia, this reviewer caught the last performance of Virginia Opera’s three-Virginia-city schedule that included venues in Norfolk, Richmond, and Fairfax. When Adam Turner, Artistic Director of Virginia Opera, attended the 2023 Houston premiere of Intelligence, he was struck by “the opera’s Virginia setting and its portrayal of real-life Virginians.” With Virginia Opera having commissioned and premiered other operas featuring Virginia topics and settings, including Loving v. Virginia (2022), Turner felt Intelligence would be a good fit for his audiences.
The libretto by Gene Scheer is based on historical facts (with some liberal interpretations) about Elizabeth Van Lew’s and Mary Jane Bowser’s Civil War spy network and the danger they endured. Mary Jane was a bi-racial orphan who Elizabeth had raised and treated like a family member. She had Mary Jane baptized as a baby in her white church and later married there as well. She also attended to Mary Jane’s substantial education. What the audience doesn’t learn until the end of the opera (though one might conjecture based on what Elizabeth’s reveals in her touching aria about her daddy) is that Mary Jane is Elizabeth’s half-sister.
The director Kyle Lang in his program note states that the creators of this opera “[place] Mary Jane’s interior life at the center [of this work].” This is brought out through Mary Jane’s interactions with a character named Lucinda who appears periodically. Eventually, the audience learns that Lucinda can only be seen by Mary Jane. In other words, Lucinda is a ghost. Throughout the opera, Mary Jane asks questions about her mother. Elizabeth tells Mary Jane her mother died giving birth to her. This turns out to be a lie that is dispelled when Elizabeth’s journal falls into the hands of a ruthless Confederate investigator named Travis Briggs.
The characters also include two men who are in love with Mary Jane. One is her husband Wilson who will do anything to help her and Elizabeth. The other is Henry, the butler at President Jeffereson Davis’ house where Elizabeth sends Mary Jane to gather intelligence. Henry saves Mary Jane twice from the lascivious clutches of Travis. Henry wants Mary Jane to run away with him to the North.
Temporarily living with Elizabeth and Mary Jane is Elizabeth’s sister-in-law Callie Van Lew, who is worried by rumors about Elizabeth’s and Mary Jane’s activities. Callie is loyal to the Confederacy. Her husband, Elizabeth’s brother John, is fighting on the Confederate side and they have three children who are staying with Callie’s mother further away from the front. Callie feeds information to Travis Briggs and tries unsuccessfully to get Mary Jane to reveal details of her covert activities. The story, though complicated, flows in a way that makes it understandable.
Heggie is known for his accessible operatic music that often features stories with strong women figures. The forty-piece orchestra infuses the music with a heavy dramatic urgency, with many crescendos in the brass and percussion that tended to cover female voices when in the lower register. Overall, the men in this production gave excellent performances with clear delivery and meaningful emphasis of their words. Standout singers were soprano Jacqueline Echols McCarley as Mary Jane Bowser and tenor Edward Graves as Wilson. McCarley’s performance was uniformly excellent, especially the “nearly mad” scene where she meets Elizabeth to express her anxiety that she will be discovered and fail in their mission. Wilson shone in his aria when he tells Mary Jane how much he loves her. The music and words are soulfully compelling and a break from the otherwise intense throughline.
In Virginia Opera’s production, the three dancers, whose choreography was a mix of African and Modern dance, enlivened the few scenes they appeared in. Otherwise, the singers moved very little making for a static presentation. In the Houston premier, eight dancers of the Urban Bush Women, also using African and Modern styling, performed throughout the production of Intelligence. The Houston production emphasized the close collaboration of choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Given the intimacy of the George Mason University Center for the Arts, one could imagine a whole dance ensemble as large as the Urban Bush Women would overwhelm the singers. Nonetheless, more dancing in the Virginia Opera production would have been welcomed.
This reviewer applauds Virginia Opera for bringing Intelligence to the political heart of the Confederacy and making it available to audiences still grappling with the consequences of the American Civil War.
Karren LaLonde Alenier
