After the Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew was considered a traitor by her fellow Richmonders.
They had reason to feel betrayed. Though Van Lew hailed from a prominent Southern family, she hated slavery and operated a spy ring on behalf of the Union. Van Lew developed a cipher system and employed hollow eggs to smuggle her messages northward. Her system became so efficient that she would eventually send fresh flowers with her messages to then-Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant for his breakfast table.
Mary Richards, who was enslaved by the Van Lew household by the age of 7, was a crucial part of this effort. Over the course of her life, Richards — also known as Mary Jane Richards Garvin and Mary Bowser — became a missionary to Liberia, a teacher at a Freedmen’s school, and a Union spy in the White House of the Confederacy. Generals Grant, Benjamin Butler and George Sharpe all cited Van Lew as a vital source of Confederate intelligence in Richmond; in her diary, Van Lew credited Richards as her best source of information.
These spying efforts are the subject of Virginia Opera’s new work “Intelligence.” Commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and produced in collaboration with Urban Bush Women, the opera had its world premiere in October 2023; a live taping of the show just won the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Adam Turner, artistic director and chief conductor of the Virginia Opera, attended the opera’s world premiere in Houston.
“I was blown away and mesmerized by the score,” says Turner, who will serve as conductor for the show. “It became a mission for me to find a way to bring it to Virginia Opera.”
Turner was surprised that he hadn’t heard about Van Lew and Richards’ history before.
“It’s an incredible story,” he says. “Mary Jane was raised with [Van Lew’s] family, basically. Educated in the north, moved back to Richmond, and was kind of playing an enslaved woman so that she could be helpful to the cause, the spy network.”
Roughly half the opera is set at the Van Lew Mansion that once sat atop Church Hill; the city tore down the mansion in 1911 and opened Bellevue Elementary School in its place the following year. The White House of the Confederacy also plays a role in the show.
“Anyone who has been there and seen that red wall will recognize our set,” Turner says.
As verifiable information about Richards and Van Lew is hard to come by — official military correspondence about the espionage was destroyed at Van Lew’s request after the war — Turner says that librettist Scheer refers to himself as an “emotional archeologist” for his attempts to lean on dramatic truth where facts run scarce. Turner notes that Scheer is one of the most prolific librettists of our generation; his operatic adaptation of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” composed by former Richmonder Mason Bates, was the season opener at The Met in October.
Asked about the score, Turner says “it has a lot of rhythmic energy and drive. It’s very soulful and bluesy. And the writing is highly accessible. Lyrical, rhapsodic, cinematic at times.”
Kyle Lang, director of the Virginia Opera production, lauds his singers, which include lyric soprano Jacqueline Echols McCarley as Mary Jane Bowser and mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon as Elizabeth Van Lew.
“The cast is stellar,” Lang says. “It’s a hard sing. It’s not easy music, but they do it in a way that it feels natural.”
Turner raves about McCarley, saying she has “a phenomenal voice” and a “career I’ve followed for a long time. [She] is just invested in communicating the emotional roller coaster, the emotional journey that Mary Jane goes on throughout the opera.”
For theatergoers dipping their toe in modern opera, Lang says this is a good place to begin.
“It is one of the most beautiful pieces of contemporary opera out there,” he says. “From start to finish, it is very clean and beautiful and accessible.”
With “Intelligence,” Virginia Opera marks its fourth season in a row that it has produced a work with a Virginia connection.
“We’re doing another Virginia-centric story and telling this incredible history of these two courageous, profoundly brave women who came together, united to do what they felt was right,” says Turner before relating “Intelligence” to our present historical moment. “By seeing this work, it’s offering a way into another deeply unsettling and dark time in our nation’s history and seeing the strength of the common man — in this case, the common woman — to stand up.”
Virginia Opera’s “Intelligence” plays Feb. 6 and 8 at the Dominion Energy Center, 600 E. Grace St. For more information visit vaopera.org or call 866-673-7282.
