Opera Now

Risking everything: the story behind Jake Heggie's new opera, Intelligence
October 2023

From slavery to a spy ring, Intelligence – Jake Heggie’s new work about two women in the American Civil War – premieres at Houston Grand Opera this month. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was ‘kind of flabbergasted’ when she was approached to direct Intelligence, a new opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. For one thing, she says, as a dance choreographer, she didn’t know anything about opera. For another, Zollar wondered, with an opera about women in the American Civil War, ‘Do they just need a Black woman as a token?’

‘But then when I talked and met with the team, I realised that this was something far more powerful and rich,’ she says.