“Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote,” by Anthony Davis, Lands

The New York Times reports on the new children’s opera Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote, by Anthony Davis, the composer of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. The new stage work chronicles a journey through deserts, a river, an underground tunnel and a border wall, told with singers dressed up as hopping bunnies, coyotes, snakes, and butterflies.

While Pancho Rabbit might present itself as a children’s opera, it tackles some of the most polarizing events gripping the nation today. It is based on a children’s picture book and written in Spanish and English, recounting the story of a Mexican farmer (Papa Rabbit), who crosses the border into the United States to work on carrot and lettuce fields. His young son, Pancho Rabbit, embarks on a perilous journey to find his father, escorted by a coyote that later tries to eat him.

“I wanted to find a way to capture the imagination of children at the same time having the subtext of what we are dealing with now,” Davis told the Times.

Read the full feature here.