Opera Parallèle, San Francisco’s contemporary opera company, will close its 15th season this month with the West Coast debut of “Harvey Milk Reimagined,” an update of the original “Harvey Milk” opera that premiered in 1995.
Both versions tell how a Jewish, closeted gay man from New York moved to San Francisco and became the first openly gay elected official in California history. That story includes his tragic death in 1978 while serving on the Board of Supervisors when Dan White, a fellow supervisor, shot and killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone in city hall.
Composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie wrote the original opera, and Wallace revised it.
“It’s really the kind of mythic journey of Harvey Milk from … closeted stockbroker to leader of the gay rights movement, a real, fundamental national figure — and the changes that happened to him along the way,” Wallace told J.
When the opera premiered 30 years ago, the city was at the height of the AIDS crisis and Milk had not yet been added to the pantheon of San Francisco heroes. Widespread recognition for his legacy came much later — Harvey Milk Day was established in 2009 and Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport was named for him in 2019 — so the original opera included background information and context that today’s audiences already have. When the opera debuted in San Francisco in 1996, J.’s reviewer called it “stunning.”
Wallace, who spent two years revising the opera, said the new work focused on clarity of both narrative and orchestral texture and rhythm.
The original opera was three hours long. The update has a more streamlined structure, features two acts rather than three and runs an hour shorter.
“Because Harvey Milk was far less known at the time, we felt a kind of obligation to explain and to educate,” he said. “That’s not always the most effective way to dramatize.”
“Harvey Milk Reimagined” is not only a historical account of Milk’s life, but also ties together his identity as both a gay man and a Jew. Wallace’s own Jewish background heavily influences the soundscape, which blends blues, jazz and rock with Jewish liturgical music.
Wallace grew up in a Conservative Jewish family in Houston and began serving as a cantor at his synagogue at age 14 — an experience he credits as a foundation of his musical career.
Wallace said he believes that Milk’s Jewishness played an integral role in his choice to become an activist and politician.
“Harvey Milk’s consciousness as a Jew informed his burgeoning consciousness as a gay man. We asked the question at the beginning, ‘Why did this guy — who had a comfortable life, plenty of money and lots of lovers — why did he change? What made him do that?’ Our answer, fundamentally, was that as a Jew raised post-Holocaust, he knew that it was impossible to remain silent and survive,” Wallace said.
“He integrated those two parts of himself and took the lessons learned post-Holocaust and applied them to his entire being and no longer remained silent. He came out, encouraged everybody else to do that and consequently became a real national leader of the gay rights movement.”
In “Harvey Milk Reimagined,” this connection is made explicit in a powerful aria in which Milk recalls the overlapping Nazi symbols used to persecute gay people and Jews: a pink triangle and the two yellow triangles that form a Star of David.
This moment marks the turning point in the opera, as Milk’s life transforms from closeted, conservative stockbroker to unapologetic political activist. As the 1969 Stonewall riots rage around him, Milk claims his identity and his mission to recognize injustice and act against it as not simply a political choice, but a moral one.
The opera ends with the candlelight march down Castro Street on the day of Milk’s death, represented by a recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish.
The cast features baritone Michael Kelly as Milk, alongside tenor Christopher Oglesby as White, tenor Henry Benson as Milk’s partner Scott Smith, bass Matt Boehler as Moscone, soprano Marnie Breckenridge as Supervisor Dianne Feinstein and mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook as Harvey’s mother.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to portray someone who’s so revered in our community,” said Kelly, who is gay and grew up in an interfaith Jewish and Catholic family in New York. “To play my hero is not something that I anticipated in my career. But here we are, and I’m not taking it lightly.”
Kelly met with people who knew Milk so he could learn as much as possible about him, including specific mannerisms he could bring to the stage. He added that he relates to Milk on a personal level.
“I think being from Long Island myself, I understand almost immediately sort of his sensibilities,” Kelly said. “This concept of stepping outside of the normative box and reaching beyond yourself into your community is an inherently Jewish attribute. It’s something that we’re all kind of given by our elders, by our grandparents, by our parents, to say we are meant to better the world that we live in and we’re meant to protect those that matter most to us — I think that that’s who Harvey was.”
“Harvey Milk Reimagined,” presented in collaboration with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, will be performed four times, from May 31 through June 7, at the Blue Shield of California Theater. There will also be a number of community events celebrating the opera and what would have been Milk’s 95th birthday on May 22, including an exhibit of his personal items, a screening of a documentary about him and a talk by Wallace at JCCSF.