CATALOG > SOLO VOICE > BENEATH SUSPICION
BENEATH SUSPICION
Winner, Opera Kansas 2016 Composition Prize
Finalist Honorable Mention, 2017-18 American Prize for Opera Composition
commissioned and premiered by Soprani Compagni
True story of 2 daring women who helped turned the tide of the American Civil War. Two sopranos and piano. 20 minutes. Perform as an oratorio or a staged mini-opera.
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"EDGE OF OUR SEATS"
"Ayers, with his slender forces on stage, keeps us on the edge of our seats in this drama that, like his The Passion of John Brown, features a triumvirate of minor-major seventh chords that circle around each other to darken the mood, which is complemented by ingenious weaving of 'Am I A Soldier of the Cross?' and 'Let My People Go.' — Dr. Walter Saul
Excerpt. Scroll further down for a complete recording
KPTS feature story on Beneath Suspicion
Complete Recording
Click the "closed captioning" button for subtitles.
Past Performances
Soprani Compangi, premiere, Indiana Wesleyan
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Opera Kansas, Wichita
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Malone Opera Theater, Ohio
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Marble City Opera, Tennessee
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Program Notes
Beneath Suspicion is based on a true but almost unknown story of two daring, American women who fought against slavery by 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. 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 imagines 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 safety and personal freedom.
Both women were inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in the 1990s.
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. 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 imagines 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 safety and personal freedom.
Both women were inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in the 1990s.
Beneath Suspicion is included on the new
Portraits of Women CD
Soprani Compagni, the commissioners of Beneath Suspicion
Tammi Huntington, Phoenix Kim-Park, and Lisa Dawson
available at CD Baby
