"Bandanna is neither fish nor fowl – as fierce as verismo but wrought with infinite care; a melding of church and cantina and Oxonian declamation," writes Tim Page.

[2] Catherine Parsonage expands upon this assessment: "[it] is wholly convincing as a modern opera, ranging stylistically from the music theatre of Gershwin, Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, to traditional mariachi music and contemporary opera of Benjamin Britten.

Hagen, who served his apprenticeship on Broadway,[3] acknowledges that holistically the piece falls between opera and musical theatre.

Hagen's style encourages audiences to be actively involved in constructing their own meanings from the richness of the textual and musical cross-references in his work.

"[4] Miguel Morales (Othello) is the police chief of a small town on the United States-Mexico border.

His lieutenant Jake (Iago) is spiriting people across the border illegally; Kane (a Caucasian labor organizer from Chicago) is stirring up trouble.

Kane convinces Jake that, by planting Mona's bandanna on Cassidy, they'll be able to drive Morales into destroying himself.

The wedding guests having left, Kane finds himself alone with a young serving girl from the local cantina.