BENEATH SUSPICION

True story of two daring women who turn the tide of the American Civil War.
Commissioned by Soprani Compagni

WINNER, 2016 Opera Kansas Zepick Composition Prize
FINALIST, 2017-18 American Prize for Composition

One Act, 20 minutes
Two sopranos, piano, incidental violin (fiddle tune)
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS

KPTS-Wichita Feature Story on Beneath Suspicion

Digital Performance Set — $55
PDF downloads. License to have 4 copies in use (3 performers + director)
Includes separate violin part
(Fiddle tune at beginning and end, easy part can be added with one rehearsal)
A Powerpoint slideshow to be used at the beginning is included
Pay, print, rehearse. No waiting for delivery.

A “grand rights” license is required for a staged performance

Excerpt, Jessica Crowell and Desireé Hargrave

Malone University Opera Theater, Cynthia Wohlschlager, director; Jessica Crowell and Desireé Hargrave, sopranos; Partick Wickliffe, piano; Joy Regimbal O’Conner, violin

Complete work, Malone University Opera Theater

The Windiana Concert Band, Jeffrey Scott Doebler, conducting; Matthew Byerly, narrating

Past Performances

Lisa Dawson and Tammie Huntington
Soprani Compagni (premiere)
Jessica Crowell and Desirée Hargrave
Malone University Opera Theater
Ashley Winters and Jasmine Jackson
Opera Kansas
Denisha Pompey and Lindsay Fushion
Marble City Opera

Program Notes

Beneath Suspicion is based on a true but almost unknown story of two daring, American women who fought against slavery, exploiting prevailing gender and racial stereotypes to spy for the Union inside the Confederate “White House” during the Civil War.

Elizabeth Van Lew, a passionate abolitionist known around Richmond as “Crazy Bet,” is the middle-aged daughter of a recently deceased, wealthy Richmond slave owner. Upon her father’s death, she frees her family’s slaves, including a young household servant named Mary. Bet, recognizing Mary’s extreme intelligence, sends her to Philadelphia to a Quaker School to be educated, after which Mary returns to Richmond to work in the Van Lew home as a free woman.

Mary has a photographic memory. She can memorize documents verbatim in one quick reading as well as repeat lengthy conversations word for word. As the war breaks out, Mary is in her early 20s, Bet, her 40s. They are close friends. Though Richmond is the capital of the Confederacy, about half of its inhabitants are Union sympathizers. Bet, a firebrand, uses her contacts to set up a spy ring to report Confederate movements to the Union military. Her information is so reliable, her coded messages go directly General Ulysses S. Grant.

This works portrays a key scene in the lives of these two women: the crisis moment when Mary must decide if she will risk her life to undertake the daring plan she believes God has revealed to her, or if she will shrink back to maintain her personal safety and freedom.

Both women were inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in the 1990s.

Soprani Compagni ‘Portraits of Women’ CD

available on Amazon Music

Past Performances

  • March 14-15-16, 2019. Marble City Opera. Knoxville TN
  • February 11, 2018. Malone Opera Theater, Roscoe Methodist Church, Coshocton OH
  • September 14, 2017. Opera Kansas, Wichita KS
  • April 8, 2017. Malone Opera Theater. Canton OH
  • March 16, 2017. Malone Opera Theater, MacDowell Club, Canton Museum of Art, Canton OH
  • January 30, 2017. Soprani Compagni on tour. Canton OH
  • October 8, 2016. Malone Opera Theater. Nat’l Composers Conference, Mississippi College
  • September 21, 2016. Soprani Compagni on tour. Handong University, South Korea
  • September 10, 2016. Soprani Compagni on tour. Columbus, IN
  • April 29, 2016. Opera Kansas. Wichita KS
  • November 13, 2015. PREMIERE. Soprani Compagni. Indiana Wesleyan University

Other Works for Voice

Home » Catalog » Opera – Art Song » BENEATH SUSPICION