Ruth Bader Ginsburg well earned the sobriquet “Notorious.” Everything about her seemed to live in happy contradiction. She followed her mother’s “dueling” advice: always to be a lady and to live a life of independence. She sparred almost daily with her more conservative “constitutionalist” colleague on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, yet considered him a dear friend and convivial dinner partner. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, her legal mind was forever being sharpened against caving to sentimentality and yet she unabashedly adored opera, where music and emotion join in equal measure.
I met her first at a Washington National Opera opening night at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House. My date that evening was my dear artistic colleague, John Boulanger, and someone who sang for several years in the WNO Chorus. At the time, John also served as an IT consultant for the Supreme Court Justices. As we were sitting on the aisle, Ginsburg stopped when she saw him, and he kindly introduced me as a director of opera and other forms of music-theatre. She was genuinely interested and said she would come to see our work before moving down and taking her seat. Thereafter I would see her at every WNO opening, and almost always during the last few years her entrance was met with appreciative applause.
A few years later I was somewhat “summoned” to the Supreme Court. It turned out to be John’s wedding to his beloved partner Tony (Antonio Pedrero), and the presider was none other than “the little Justice.” When it came to the pronouncement, the entire room held their breath. What would she say? She spoke firmly, with distinction, and with just the right amount of dramatic pause, “By the power invested in me… and the con-sti-tu-tion… I pronounce you – married!”
Over several years in the summers, I would also see her join “the Glimmerglass family” just outside of Cooperstown, New York. She came not just as a spectator but a valuable presenter, drawing in crowds of people who thoroughly relished her talks about the legal premises in opera plots. Although she was a traditionalist in her love of the operatic canon, she clearly yearned to have fewer consumptive heroines and more of the strong independent female agents such as Leonore in Fidelio. She certainly enjoyed being the heroine in Scalia/Ginsburg an opera about her professional relationship with Antonin Scalia.
Ginsburg was a loyal and enthusiastic supporter of certain companies and clearly had a special fondness and respect for Francesca Zambello and her vision. (Please read Zambello’s in-depth tribute to this American hero and opera lover.)
In her last appearances on the stage at Glimmerglass, RBG was almost always heralded by the gathered audience with a standing ovation. When asked in the Q&As following her presentations, “How was her health?” and “Was she considering retirement?” she would always state firmly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The universe obviously had other plans. The Notorious RBG. Ever Glorious. Rest in Power.
“Sandra tells me you’re an opera singer!”
So began the conversation the afternoon that I met Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Friday, March 25, 1994. The Justice was mid-way through her first Term at the Court, where I had been working at the IT Help Desk for two years.
She had a pair of tickets to a performance at the Kennedy Center that evening and her husband Marty was unable to join her. She had already asked Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to accompany her and been told about my musical avocation. We chatted very briefly since she had much work to do, and she gave me my ticket and a CD of the artist we’d be hearing; she’d been given a copy by the presenting organization but already had one.
Later I met her at our seats in the Concert Hall, where we chatted about all things operatic before the performance and at intermission; I have never known anyone outside the business with a more encyclopedic knowledge of the art form, though I have known many within it who knew much less than she.
After the concert, we attended a reception in the Terrace Restaurant, where I got to meet Nina Totenberg and Cecilia Bartoli, whose Washington recital debut we had attended. I had long been a fan of Nina Totenberg from listening to NPR, and Ms. Bartoli’s recital was an absolute delight, including no fewer than six encores. But what made the night most memorable for me was meeting the woman who would some years later refer to herself as the president of my fan club.
Justice Ginsburg’s friendship with Justice Scalia operated on many different levels including their love of opera. A recent response to Jennifer Senior’s witty commentary celebrating that friendship*, pointing out how much we learn from their relationship — notwithstanding the “rancid partisanship” “befouling” established processes to replace her. A commentator to the editorial, not convinced the two were intellectual equals, thought opera “(for the record…does not require a strong intellect, just an appreciation of passion and the wonders of the human voice)” causes me to demur, having actively worked in the form for the better part of 75 years. Opera does open to an appreciation of passion, the wonders of the human voice, AND the entire notion of being human.
Last summer I spent some time with Justice Ginsburg in Cooperstown with members of the Alliance for New Music Theater, enjoying and THINKING about a new opera “Blue” presented by the Glimmerglass Opera Company, via a beautifully constructed libretto and thoughtful music. This very human presentation of a black American family’s intimate relationship with the NYC Police moved deeply and opened for consideration many intellectual ideas driving our present concerns. Music Theater does this; Opera does this; art does this,
A pivotal confrontation between the Father and his maturing Son over the father’s career as a “Peace Officer”, shows passion, beautiful emotional singing and sets up a strong intellectual challenge, just as our present structural racism confrontations have since George Floyd’s murder. Last summer, in a Festival setting, RBG opined on the role of law in opera. Why it intrigued and engaged her mind.
Not always easy stuff, nor, just an entertainment. I recommend this new work be added to our (and the commentator’s) repertoire. Justice Ginsburg’s cerebral celebration of opera explores a triumph of our cultural understanding and our human knowledge.
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From Comments to the Jennifer Senior Opinion on 09/22/2020:
@Robin A. I agree with you. Scalia was indeed clever, in that he could twist Constitutional anachronisms to suit his purposes when he posed his questions to lawyers arguing cases before the Supreme Court and when he wrote his majority and minority opinions. Ginsburg, on the other hand, was not just brilliant, but intellectually honest. I am happy they could be friends and enjoy opera together, but I will never be convinced that was because they were intellectual equals. They were not. (For the record, appreciation of opera does not require a strong intellect, just an appreciation of passion and the wonders of the human voice._
* September 22,2020 —NYT Editorial Jennifer Senior: There is a lot for us to learn, not just from their friendship, but from their intellectual combat
Reply from Robert Edward Darling
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