The opera's story is based on the final night of American president John F. Kennedy's life that was spent in at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, prior to his assassination in Dallas, on November 22, 1963.
Many critics wrote about a disorienting dream that Jackie experiences involving the historical figures Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone.
In still a third, they are a couple who attended Ford's Theatre with Abraham Lincoln: Henry, who was stabbed by John Wilkes Booth, was later driven mad and killed Clara while attacking their children.
"[4] Another rave was published in The Wall Street Journal by Heidi Waleson who compared the work to Little and Vavrek's groundbreaking previous opera by saying "Mr. Little's score juxtaposes the insistent, propulsive cacophony of Dog Days with expressive melody", and celebrating "Mr. Vavrek's surreally layered, poetic and theatrically well-paced libretto".
"[8] The most controversial scene proved to be a dream sequence in which Lyndon B. Johnson appears as an exaggerated cowboy, a moment that a number of critics took issue with, including Scott Cantrell of The Dallas Morning News who called it "acutely offensive",[9] and James L. Paulk suggesting it was "vulgar" in Classical Voice America,[10] but Olin Chism in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that the "low comedy" received "the biggest laughs of the evening.