Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer: Intelligence
Houston Grand Opera • LSO Live

When “A Black Spy in the Confederate White House,” a 2012 New York Times op-ed by Lois Leveen, was brought to the attention of composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer in 2015, they knew they'd found the subject matter for their next opera. Of course Heggie's best known for Dead Man Walking (2000), its libretto by Terrence McNally, but the operas he's created with Scheer—Three Decembers (2008), Moby-Dick (2010), It's a Wonderful Life (2016), and now Intelligence (2023)—have also been warmly received. The San Francisco-based composer has produced a voluminous collection of material comprising concertos, chamber music, choral, orchestral works, ten operas, and over 300 art songs. Works beyond those mentioned include Songs for Murdered Sisters (2020), his cycle with Margaret Atwood, and the song cycle Pieces of 9/11 (2011), another collaboration with Scheer. The latter's also worked as librettist with other composers, including Jennifer Higdon on the opera Cold Mountain and Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy.

For Intelligence, Heggie and Scheer worked with director-and-choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the fruits of their collaboration captured in this world premiere recording of a live performance by Houston Grand Opera. The recording features the stellar original cast, Jamie Barton as Elizabeth Van Lew, Janai Brugger as Mary Jane Bowser, J'Nai Bridges as Lucinda, Caitlin Lynch as Callie Van Lew, and Michael Mayes as Travis Briggs, with conductor Kwamé Ryan leading the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra. While Brugger and Barton are the production's towering leads, the performances by Bridges, Mayes, Lynch, plus Nicholas Newton and Joshua Blue as Henry, the butler at the Confederate White House, and Wilson Bowser, Mary Jane's husband, respectively, are as strong. Those attending the original live production also witnessed the on-stage presence of eight resplendently attired dancers from Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's company Urban Bush Women dancers.

In this context, the work's title doesn't refer to IQ but rather the gathering of intelligence by a Union spy ring during the American Civil War, said ring overseen by two heroic women spies in Richmond, Virginia, Elizabeth Van Lew, a white Southern woman from a wealthy family, and Mary Jane Bowser, a Black woman born into slavery in the Van Lew household. History suggests Bowser might have been a spy for Van Lew in the Confederate White House and that the two played pivotal roles in sending vital intelligence to the North and helping Union soldiers escape to the North. Danger, deception, courage, intrigue, and subterfuge all find their way into this gripping and suspenseful saga, and the opera's creators were quick to recognize the dramatic and emotional potential the story offered. Had the actions undertaken by the women been uncovered, torture and death would have been likely. Without giving away too much, secrets are revealed and hidden connections involving Mary Jane, Lucinda, and Elizabeth are exposed before story's end. The work might be set in 1865, but its story is as timely today, what with current headlines about, to cite a single example, the rounding up and deportation of immigrants. In Heggie's view, Intelligence "is a human story [that] speaks directly to where we are as a country today."

Structured in two acts, the 135-minute work is presented handsomely with two discs housed in a sturdy box and with a booklet featuring photos, commentaries, synopses, and the libretto. There are episodes of intense drama and poignancy but occasional levity too. Par for the opera course, there are arias and duets, but their appearance is never abrupt; instead, they seamlessly emerge at strategic moments without disrupting flow. The production of the live recording is excellent, and crowd and ambient noise is almost entirely absent, the presence of the audience only revealed by an occasional titter of laughter.

Brugger brings Mary Jane to life with a dynamic and richly textured performance, one ablaze with courage, determination, and fortitude and that touches the heart with affecting expressions of longing, desperation, and tenderness. Her “Just one step” aria is merely one riveting moment of many in this terrific turn, and the role is demanding in the extreme when she is on stage for much of the production. The same could be said about Barton, who humanizes Elizabeth and enriches her portrait by showing the many personality facets that emerge through her interactions with different character types. Much like Brugger, Barton's aria “Look me in the eye” gives her a grand opportunity to impose herself, though she does so throughout the opera. Mayes gives a powerful performance as Confederate Home Guard Briggs, who's devious, cruel, lecherous, and not hesitant to use his power to threaten and, in the case of Mary Jane, make sexual advances (the little tune he whistles calls to mind Peter Lorre who as child murderer Hans Becker in Fritz Lang's M whistles his own, Grieg's “In the Hall of the Mountain King”).

A strong presence also is Lynch as Callie, who persistently tries to entrap Elizabeth and uncover her true sympathies. Calculating and suspicious she might be, but there's a very human side to Callie too, as demonstrated by the moving solos Lynch delivers during the opening act (“You leave him be, Elizabeth”) and the second (My family didn't have slaves!”). Also memorable is “Chained to you forever,” the late duet she and Elizabeth sing as Callie rolls a dead body into a freshly dug grave. Though their roles are smaller, Newton is strong as the butler Henry, as is Blue as the Mary Jane-devoted Wilson (the latter even gets his own aria, “Why risk everything for this?”). With Ryan as its expert guiding hand, the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra delivers an assured and sterling performance.

September 2025