(Jacqueline Echols McCarley will make her Virginia Opera debut in the east coast premiere of “Intelligence.” Photo courtesy of L2 Artists.)
By Montague Gammon III
Virginia Opera is “bringing a Virginia story home” with its January 30 – February 1 East Coast premiere of “Intelligence,” said company Artistic Director Adam Turner.
Imagine a Civil War Union spy network, based in Richmond, that heart and capital of the Confederacy, run by a young socialite, the daughter of wealthy Rebel sympathizers. Imagine also that her prime agent was an enslaved woman of her household.
That network and those women actually did exist, and the opera is based on the smattering of known facts about them and their undercover activities.
“Intelligence” has been produced just once before now, and the recording of that 2023 world premiere at the Houston Grand Opera is up for a Grammy this year.
Turner said, in a phone chat the day after the show’s first rehearsal, that composer Jake Hegge and librettist Gene Scheer will be at opening night here, and then fly to Los Angeles the next day to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony.
“Intelligence” has just about everything: little known heroic women, villains of the sort “we love to hate,” plus sibling rivalry, suspense, lively dancing (of African spirits and ancestors), and even a mysterious character whose true, hinted at identity gets revealed close to the final curtain. (That character falls among the historical fiction elements of the show, with which Sheer and Hegge have fleshed out the bare bones of surviving information about spymaster and slave.)
Plus, Jake Hegge’s music encourages some splendid voices, including MetropolitanOpera rising stars, to soar.
This production has a brand new set, brand new costumes, and a cast who, all but one, are new to the Virginia Opera. The director is Virginia Opera veteran Kyle Lang, whose many and varied shows at VAOpera have made him a critical and audience favorite.
“We love working with Kyle,” said Turner. “He’s the first person I thought of for this opera…both with his dance background and his history of doing so much work here and knowing our audiences, knowing the strengths of our production department. He knows how elicit the best result out of who he’s working with, the production department and the cast.”
To design the new set “We enlisted Steven Kemp [who] designed last season’s “Carmen” and people really liked that; I’ve seen lots of good feedback from that,” were Turner’s words.
Costumes are “Designed by our very own [Costume Shop Manager] Pat Seyller.”
Choreographer is Christine C. Wyatt, who before and after graduating with honors from VCU, has built up a body of performing and choreography and teaching that slots right into the sort of racial and female achievements at the heart of “Intelligence.”
Turner had plenty to say about the leading performers:
The role of enslaved Mary Jane Bowser goes to Jacqueline Echols McCarley. Turner said she’s “someone whose career I’ve followed for a long time and I’ve been looking for the right role for her to debut at Virginia Opera. She’s just perfectly suited in vocal color, in physicality and characterization.”
Spymaster Elizabeth van Lew is played by Ashley Dixon. “A force of nature…she has a stellar voice,” Turner said, adding “She first came to my attention because she was the cover [essentially, understudy] for the role at Houston Grand Opera [and] she was intimately acquainted with the piece in its workshop stages back in 2021/22 when they first started writing the piece. She was one of the first ones to see the music and the libretto,”
That is, during various trial runs to get “Intelligence” into its final form, Dixon was the first person ever to sing the role of Elizabeth van Lew.
When Turner mentioned “villains we love to hate,” he was referring to Confederate Home Guard member and murderous would be spy catcher Travis Briggs and staunch Confederate supporter Callie van Lew, Elizabeth’s younger sister.
More forcefully, he called the character Briggs “slimy and skeezy and all those things…smarmy, sneaky, slimy.” He was then quick to point out that baritone Craig Irvin is none of the above, and that much of Irvin’s repertoire is comic, The Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” being his most often sung role. “But he can access all” those despicable qualities, Turner said, and will make “a really good villain.”
The only person in this seven member cast who is returning to the Harrison Opera House is soprano Maureen McKay, in the role of the loyal Southerner Callie. She played the sweet young Rose in VAOpera’s “Street Scene” in the Fall of 2018. That was “a very sympathetic role that everyone loves.” said Turner.
As Briggs ally, “trying to get her sister-in-law trapped and found out as a spy…she’s constantly sneaking around,” said Turner. “She’s getting to stretch some different acting muscle in this role and it’s great to be able to feature that for her.” Turner also mentioned that McKay “just finished a run of “The Magic Flute” at the Met this past December, starring as Papagena [the female lead.]” Her resume lists a growing handful-plus of increasingly important roles at that most famous of America Opera companies.
Lucinda, the mystery woman, is sung by another Met vet, mezzo-soprano Cierra Byrd, who comes to this production having covered the same role in Houston. She’s got a good half dozen opera and concert credits from the Met, and a small type, closely spaced page of roles and appearances all across the country.
Mary Jane’s husband Wilson is sung by tenor Edward Graves, who made his own Metropolitan Opera debut last season. He’s has the expanding resume of coast to coast operatic roles that have characterized VAOpera’s young singers on the rise, and was praised by “Opera News” for the “stunningly sweet tone” of his voice.
Kevin Thompson brings what the New York Times termed his “stentorian bass” voice to the role of Henry, butler at the Davis family’s official residence.
That’s Davis as in the President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, in whose office and home Mary Jane found work, and with it access to crucial Rebel secrets.
Intrigue and music, history and drama, local connections and national importance. Who could ask for anything more?
“Intelligence”
Conceived by Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, Jawole Zollar
Music by Jake Heggie, Libretto by Gene Scheer
Sung in English with English captions
Presented by Virginia Opera
Conducted by Adam Turner
7:30 p.m., Fri., Jan, 30
2:30 p.m., Sun., Feb. 1
Edythe C. and Stanley L. Harrison Opera House
160 E. Virginia Beach Blvd., (Llewellyn at Va Beach Blvd.), Norfolk
866-673-7282 (1-866-OPERAVA)
www.vaopera.org
Additional performances in Richmond and Fairfax
The orchestra for this production is provided by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.