Virginia Public Media

Grammy-nominated opera about spies, war and freedom debuts this weekend
January 2026

Virginia Opera is performing 'Intelligence,' which is based on two Richmond women who worked for the North during the Civil War. The opera will be performed in Norfolk, Richmond and Fairfax.

Composer Jake Heggie is accustomed to shoulder taps and “excuse me’s” from patrons attending publicity events promoting his work. Next comes the recommendation for the next great opera. Rarely does Heggie give those ideas more than a polite listen.

San Francisco-based Heggie and New Yorker Gene Scheer, arguably today’s most acclaimed composer-librettist team, recall the moment in Washington when a docent asked, “Have you ever heard of Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Jane Bowser?”

Neither knew the names of the Richmond women, whom the docent said were spies for the North during the Civil War. Sharing an Uber to their hotel, they turned to their phones for a Google search. What they found intrigued them.

“They had a partnership, but Elizabeth was always in charge,” Heggie said. “That has to do with the racial inequality. I thought that was important to portray for audiences today because it’s still there. I wanted to capture that elusive inequity as the piece went on and deal with it honestly.”