New Bilingual Opera Explores Migrant Journey in ‘Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote’

“I’ve never done a story like this,” shared Davis. He was first approached about the project in 2017 by Bodhi Tree Concerts. “Sometimes complexity is overrated. We’re presenting the story in a playful way that is meant to be engaging for children and provocative for adults.”

The opera is inspired by the children’s book of the same name by Duncan Tonatiuh. The story follows Pancho Rabbit as he travels north, led by the cunning Coyote, to find his father who had left two years earlier to work in the carrot and lettuce fields. The Coyote character signifies a guide who facilitates undocumented border crossings. He latches onto young Pancho Rabbit, assuring him he has a shortcut, which leads to a treacherous train ride, a risky river crossing and passage through a dangerous tunnel.

Tonatiuh’s goal in writing the work is to spark conversation with young people about the often-harsh realities of immigrants who leave their homes in search of opportunity.

“I really gravitated toward the allegorical material,” explained Havis. “This borderlands story feels more relevant than ever — it’s a way to engage in the national conversation and, ultimately, to encourage compassion.”

Havis joined the project in June 2024. As librettist, he created a script for the 80-minute opera based on the book. While the original text is written nearly entirely in English, the opera opens in Spanish and intermingles the two languages throughout. Audiences will also hear a kind of slang that is used at the U.S.-Mexico border.

While the book provided the plot, everything else about the characters had to be developed for the opera. “You have to create the songs and imagine what the characters will say to each other, bring in the internal voice of what they are thinking and feeling,” explained Davis. “Opera is ideal for this; you get to build the subtext of the story through arias, when a character expresses something deeply personal in a solo piece.”

Though the topic is weighty, the production will be lively, featuring over two dozen instruments, from trumpets to marimba and vibraphone. Davis describes the work as “magical,” “dreamlike,” and “surreal,” drawing inspiration from allegorical stories like Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” operas such as Ravel’s “L’Enfant et les Sortilèges,” and Stravinsky’s “The Nightingale,” with nods to Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and the magic of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Each of the principal characters play double roles. Mamá Rabbit also sings the River, Papá Rabbit doubles as the Tunnel, and Señor Ram provides vocals for “La Bestia,” also known as the “Death Train” by migrants. There is also a children’s choir that represents a cascade of monarch butterflies, an eloquent metaphor for migration.

The lead role of Pancho Rabbit is sung by soprano Mariana Flores Bucio, a Mexican singer and actress who has performed on major stages, from Lincoln Center to Mexico City’s Zócalo Capitalino. 

“It is a great honor to work with Anthony Davis on an opera that speaks right to the reality of all of us who live along the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Flores Bucio. “As a Mexican singer, it is both a tremendous responsibility and an equal joy to tell this story.”

A UC San Diego alumna with master’s and doctoral degrees in music, Flores Bucio also co-directs the vocal ensemble Radical Ensamble in Tijuana and is developing the project “Mexperimental Music: Reimagining Roots, Identity and Singing.”

“What I loved the most about UC San Diego was the encounter with such a high level of artists in the Department of Music community – graduate fellows and faculty,” shared Flores Bucio. “I learned and grew immensely just by being around these amazing people, and I treasure each of them with deep gratitude in my heart. UC San Diego is truly a special, one-of-a-kind place.”

Tenor Victor Ryan Robertson, a dynamic American artist whose repertoire spans classical to contemporary works, co-stars as the Coyote. A frequent collaborator with composer Anthony Davis, he sang Elijah/Street in the Grammy Award-nominated “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” at the Metropolitan Opera and Raymond Santana in “The Central Park Five” at Portland Opera — a performance featured on the Grammy Award–nominated recording of the opera.

The opera is a “dream come true” for Bodhi Tree Concert founders Diana and Walter DuMelle. A San Diego-based nonprofit organization, their mission is to offer music as a path towards enlightenment and understanding.

“Our goal – for audiences, and children in particular – is to see themselves represented in a beautiful new work in a genre that historically leaves out so many,” says Diana. “Anthony Davis and Allan Havis create genius work ahead of their time; how extraordinarily lucky we are to have them in San Diego.”

Davis and Havis have been friends and professional colleagues for over 25 years. “We’re both New Yorkers; we’re both pretty playful in how we approach things,” said Davis. In 2009 they collaborated on “Lilith,” followed by “Lear on the 2nd Floor” four years later. “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote” marks their third creative partnership.

A distinguished professor in UC San Diego’s Department of Music and Cecil Lytle Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in African and African American Music, Davis has been making waves in opera, chamber, choral and orchestral music for more than four decades. He’s unafraid to spotlight some of society’s most pervasive problems—from racism and police brutality to immigration reform and political unrest – garnering him a 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera “The Central Park Five.” Davis was also inducted into the Opera Hall of Fame in 2024.

Allan Havis, a professor in UC San Diego’s Department of Theatre and Dance, is a nationally and internationally acclaimed playwright, librettist and novelist whose works have been produced at theaters across the U.S. and Europe. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Havis has published 20 full-length plays, five novels and three edited volumes on American political drama, as well as a book on the study of cinema, “Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression.”

Learn more and find tickets for “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote” here.