DCTheaterArts.org
Bob Ashby
February 18, 2026
The opera focuses on an enslaved woman and an anti-slavery white woman who collaborated in spying for the Union in Richmond during the Civil War.
There is a historical nugget behind the plot and leading characters of Intelligence, which was given its East Coast premiere by Virginia Opera last weekend. With a Grammy-winning score by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Gene Scheer, the opera focuses on an enslaved woman, Mary Jane Bowser, and an anti-slavery white woman, Elizabeth Van Lew, who collaborated in spying for the Union in Richmond during the closing stages of the Civil War.
The title is a pun, as Elizabeth (mezzo Ashley Dixon) and Mary Jane (soprano Jaqueline Echols McCarley) explain in a first-act duet. On one hand, intelligence is the information gained through Mary Jane’s spycraft. On the other, intelligence refers to Mary Jane’s sharp intellect and literacy. It was her idea to infiltrate Jefferson Davis’s home, enabling her to gain access to Confederate military information from white folks who can’t fathom what a socially invisible Black servant might hear, see, and remember.