An opera based on Octavia Butler’s 1993 post-apocalyptic novel “Parable of the Sower,” just finished its New York City premiere at Lincoln Center this July.

Developed by singer songwriter Toshi Reagon and her mother, singer activist Bernice Johnson Reagon, the work recreates Butler’s celebrated Afrofuturist masterpiece as a fully staged “congregational” opera. The story takes place in a near future America of 2024 where climate change, social inequity and injustice has created a nightmarish world where the protagonist Lauren Olamina, who feels the pain of others, strives to shape a different reality.

The music and lyrics were written by Reagon and Johnson Reagon, founder of the ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. The opera has been workshopped throughout the last 30 years, however Parable has its origins at Princeton. In the 1990s, Toni Morrison asked Johnson Reagon to teach a class in the then fledgling Princeton Atelier program in the fall of 1997, because of her work as a musician and activist.

“Toni Morrison asked my mother to come to Princeton to do the Princeton Atelier,” Reagon told NPR’s Anastasia Tsioulcas on Morning Edition. “It’s an opportunity for an artist to teach at Princeton for a semester. Mom was really busy at the time, and she was like, ‘Maybe Toshi can do half the classes!’ I was like, you know, young in my career. And I was like, ‘Woo hoo, I’m going to go teach at Princeton for Toni Morrison — yay, it’s so cool!”

Founded by Morrison, the Princeton Atelier is a unique program that brings together professional artists from different disciplines to collaborate on new work with students through a semester-long course.

The mother-daughter duo taught the Humanities 498 course and created many songs during the semester through an intense give-and-take collaboration between student singers and the songwriters. Some works inspired by Butler’s book began to take a musical shape.

“There’s a lot of a cappella groups on Princeton’s campus and my mom is an a cappella singer,” Reagon told NBC News in a recent article by Tracey Anne Duncan. According to the article, through this dynamic, the class made music that explored themes of climate disaster, dislocation and community.

Photo: Singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon performs in the “Parable of the Sower” opera. (Photo by Ehud Lazin/Lincoln Center)