Photo by Greg Grudt / Matthew Imaging.
One day after the end of the Ojai Festival, I saw David T. Little's Dog Days at LA Opera — or, more precisely, at the REDCAT space under Disney Hall, in a Beth Morrison Projects production presented by LA Opera. Although I'd seen the work on video, I was still unprepared for the visceral, clobbering impact of this apocalyptic family drama, which Steve Smith memorably reviewed in the New York Times in 2012. Against an endless parade of quaint literary adaptations, Dog Days is furiously, frighteningly contemporary. I had originally planned to append a short review to my Ojai column, but I couldn't do it justice in limited space. Fortunately, there will be occasion to revisit the piece in New York next winter, and Little's next opera, JFK, will have its premiere in Fort Worth in April 2016.
