For the work’s premiere in the city of Oaxaca, the music was reorchestrated so that it could be played by a real village band, one from the small Oaxacan town of San Bartolomé Zoogocho.
[4] This play is based on a real event in the 1980s, when a group of migrants were abandoned in a broken down train car, with all but one succumbing to suffocation.
[2][4] The work is a social reflection of the phenomenon, including the division of families and the almost complete abandonment of towns because of the lack of jobs.
[6] The sound is unconventional for an opera, especially the orchestration, as it is a mixed of traditional Mexican rural band music and more contemporary composition.
[2][5] The work was originally conceived for percussion, saxophone and piano, but it was rearranged for a traditional Oaxaca rural band, becoming to first opera written in Mexico to be accompanied in this manner.