Stewart Wallace is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and cantor

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

. He has spent much of his career composing experimental opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s, from the dance-centered Kabbalah (1989) to the surrealist Hopper's Wife (1992). Two of his operas have been premiered at the Houston Grand Opera

Houston Grand Opera

Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

, Where's Dick?

Where's Dick?

Where's Dick? is an opera in 2 Acts by composer Stewart Wallace. The work uses an English language libretto by Michael Kone. The opera was first performed in a workshop format by Opera Omaha on 26 September 1987. The opera's first full scale production and official premiere, with largely the same...

(1989) and Harvey Milk (1995); the latter of which was based on the life of its namesake

Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

. His most recent opera, The Bonesetter's Daughter

The Bonesetter's Daughter (opera)

The Bonesetter's Daughter is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Stewart Wallace to a libretto byAmy Tan based on her novel of the same name...

, uses a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by
Amy Tan

Amy Tan

Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages...

 which is based on her novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 of the same name

The Bonesetter's Daughter

The Bonesetter's Daughter, published in 2001, is Amy Tan's fourth novel. Like much of Tan's work, this novel deals with the relationship between an American-born Chinese woman and her immigrant mother....

. The Bonesetter's Daughter premiered at the War Memorial Opera House of the San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

in 2008.