Washington ~Superstars~ for the WNO, aka Ruth Bader Ginsburg In The (Opera) House

We all have people we look up to -- as role models, as the kind of grown-ups we'd like to become one day. For many kids, it's more often than not baseball players, or rappers. For Opera Chic though, it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman ever on the US Supreme Court, who despite her monster brains and wisdom and cutting wit manages to carry herself lightly -- and we like that in our heroes. Pioneer of equal rights for American women, professor at Rutgers and Columbia, the first woman to appear on the Harvard Law Review AND the Columbia Law Review, Justice Ruth -- usually the smartest person in the room, and quite often the only woman in there -- spent her life and career drilling more than a few big holes through that old glass ceiling. And if and when, one day, that ceiling is truly shattered, we'll owe Justice Ruth and women like her a debt of gratitude that's probably impossible to repay. 

 

Being so awesome, Justice Ruth is also a huge opera fan -- thus making her the perfect hero for Opera Chic. And last night, she went to the opera house with her good friend "Big Tony" Scalia (probably the most intelligent man ever to utter the zany words "gay agenda" with a straight face -- Antonio, relax, they won't give you a makeover if you don't want to; even if you really need one pretty badly).    

Last night's opening of Washington National Opera Ariadne auf Naxos boasted supernumeraries of a special kind: the above mentioned Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Antonin Scalia, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Professor Martin Ginsburg and arts philanthropist Adrienne Arsht all turned out to appear in on-stage as non-speaking party guests.

 

(Above: Justice "Big Tony" Scalia with Zerbinetta's Lyubov Petrova)

From the WNO press release:

Justice Scalia added, “I can’t remember when I’ve ever had more fun on stage.” The renowned conservative jurist chuckled throughout the performance, and at one point blushed in earnest when Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova, who played the care-free minx Zerbinetta, plopped down on his lap and draped an arm around him, leading the entire audience to erupt in applause.

Ginsburg & Scalia, both avid opera fans, have already appeared on the WNO stage, first in 1994 in Die Fledermausand again in 2006 for a 50th Anniversary Gala. All photos are credited to Karin Cooper for WNO.

 
(Above: Zerbinetta's Lyubov Petrova takes a bow while Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Antonin Scalia look on)

~*click for more photos*~

 
(Above: Eleanor Holmes Norton, Martin Ginsburg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, and Adrienne Arsht)

(Above: Adrienne Arsht)

 
(Above: Antonin Scalia)

Comments

[Luke]

love it! wish I had been there. Scalia is the best.

[JtM]

What a great story! And I agree with Luke, Scalia is the best. Its the type of person who can happily reach across the political table and befriend somebody of a completely different viewpoint that reminds us of why this country is so great. And I think it's no coincidence that the same type of person is a huge opera fan :-)

[Susan]

Justices Ginsberg and Scalia also appeared on the stage in WNO's 1996 production of Mephistopheles which starred a barechested Sam Ramey wearing skintight screaming red tights, and looking very fine.

[nick]

Copy cats!!! This happens at La Scala all the time. Nothing new under the "O' Sole Mio"!!!

[Intheknow]

Actually, the two justices appeared in the previous production of "Ariadne" which had two boxes built in to the sides of the sets. This is just a retread of a pr trick which worked in 1994, and of course has gained just as many headlines this time out. They were, of course, not part of Robert Carsen's Mefistofele production, if you believe this, you are having your leg pulled.

Of course, there are those who would like you to believe that Domingo invented the world, however, there were a great number of first rate productions in LA and DC before the annointed one arrived.

Fledermaus wasn't part of the repertoire of this company between 92-99.

[renee8]

Surprised to see Petrova as Zerbinetta. She was really awful in the role when she did it at the Met 8-9 years ago; a gergiev "solution" to Dessay's indisposition that season. The Met was set to tape Ariadne but pulled the plug after the reaction to Petrova.

[Linda Ginsburg]

My hero, my namesake.

[bobman]

Luke & JtM: "Scalia is the best"....?

Mussolini was gregarious and friendly too. But I see very little difference between the Italian fascist and this Italian-American Neanderthal.
Just because Scalia loves opera and is a friendly sort doesn't excuse his mangling of the essence of this great country.

[Doug]

I agree; Scalia is the best. He's the best raging homophobe currently serving on the Supreme Court.

[Maximus]

I'm also loving Scalia, and while Ginsburg isn't one of my favorites because of her voting record, but I cannot deny that she's an amazingly important woman in America (and in general).

It's not so much of a shock to learn that they are both opera lovers since I'd expect something like that from such educated people, but it is still quite a nice tidbit of information.

[Lou Ann D.]

In the preview video Petrova does well from a technical standpoint but it sounds edgy and not very pretty. Preview videos aren't too reliable in my opinion but I wasn't impressed by anybody, really.

I agree that this is good PR for the supreme court. Scalia will get no kudos from me even with his opera lovin' behavior.

[nick]

@ intheknow: Yeah... people think there was no opera before certain people and noone knew how "it was done"! The truth is: It was done better and was taken more seriously!!!

[MarK]

When Justice Ginsburg and her husband were spending a few days in LA about three years ago, our mutual friends brought them to the Walt Disney Concert Hall where i was happy to demonstrate its acoustics for them by playing on three different Stradivari violins from various points on stage and above it, for nearly an hour. She was very interested in everything and seemed genuinely moved by the experience. It felt good being able to entertain such a distinguished American lady who at that time was already not in the best of health, unfortunately. It's nice to know that she is still going reasonably strong. Thank you, Opera Chic, for sharing this interesting operatic moment with us.

[Philip]

I read Luke's and JtM's Scalia plugs, and I thought here we have the first two comments and already they've politicized the story, MtM doing so while pretending to applaud political ecumenism but not mentioning Ginsburg's part. And then I scroll down and find they've succeeded. This may be, of course, because, to quote MtM's phrase, "...it's no coincidence that the same type of person is a huge opera fan...", and fanatically partisan, and not necessarily educated (Maximus, veritatem imitare).

[Lindsay]

Anyone else suspicious that Ginsberg and Scalia are an item? They are apparently major besties.

As a raging liberal, this thought makes me want to gag, but I do applaud Scalia for being an opera fan and for his apparent good humor- I love the picture with Petrova on his lap. As for the headlines, anything to remind the American public that we actually have opera in this country is just fine by me.

[Coloratura Tempura]

Justice Bader Ginsburg is awesome. If she vouches for Scalia he can't be all bad. Conservative, yes. But I don't believe she'd hang out with a bigot.

[el cajon]

Chief Justice Roberts also goes to the opera regularly, as did Robert Novak. They are/were very unobtrusive. Charles Krauthammer certainly goes when Wagner is performed. What's strange is how rarely I see the big-name liberals at the opera, excepting of course Justic Ginsburg. But maybe they are at different performances. Quien sabe?

[Philip]

El cajon's observation, continuing the politiciztion of this, is interesting, I must say. What immediately leaps to mind in reading it is, of course, that "the big-name liberals" are very much apparent at symphony and chamber concerts and recitals, and that many opera lovers have no interest in purely instrumental music. It may be nothing more significant than that one type of mind has a greater capacity for grasping the abstract and absolute, whereas the other responds to music only when it is accompanied by words and a story, no matter how banal or incredible.

[Furst]

Nino!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Its this sort of tangential coverage and commentary that makes OC our heroine.)

@ El Cajon: As we mentioned on an earlier thread Kennedy does the opera thing as well and listens while writing opinions (as per a speech he gave while we were in law school. (Nino was speaking uptown at the @#$# law school up there and we got to hear both of them in the same week. Naturally Nino was more entertaining but Kennedy was actually (somewhat) more bearable than his opinions.

We have also heard that the Chief frequents the Opera. (We love the Chief - speaking of whom its absolutely breathtaking that within 3 months someone could actually nominate him and HARRIET MIERS!!!?!?!?!?!? to the same job. Kinda like casting La De Niese as the Marschallin in the new production of DRK in Vienna or Munich - when they get around to such. And we may be doing an injustice to La De Niese by making the analogy. Easily the worst decision of the Bush presidency).

Ruthy and Nino may be buds but both are of course happily married. Mr. Ginsburg has been one of the most eminent tax lawyers in the country for decades and is the author or THE authoritative treatise on Tax M&A although even with these credentials his is the less distinguished (whatever one's jurisprudential perspective) legal career in the family.

[Dan Johnson]

[cough, cough]

[Furst]

@Dan Johnson

Of course. Stare Decisis is a perfectly wonderful doctrine but sometimes the Court must simply admit that the earlier decision was wrong as a matter of law at the time it was decided. The social science crap in Brown is precisely the sort of thing that is generally best avoided. The (1st) Justice Harlan was correct in holding in Plessy that segregation was impermissible under the original meaning of the 14th Amendment. It was not some sort of organic development of the "living Constitution" which made it in 1954 what it was not in 1896.

[RMM]

Just to add to el cajon's observation, I've seen Newt Gingrich at the Washington Opera and Donald Rumsfeld at the Met before. More appropriately to this post, I've also seen Scalia at the Washington Opera too (at a Lucia with Futral and Bros earlier this decade). Being an autograph collector, I got him to sign my ticket after the performance. I've never seen any big liberals at the opera--I've wondered about this too.

I also wonder why opera is so big with the Supremes in general? The late Chief Justice Rehnquist was also a big fan.

"Big Tony" Scalia? That's "Nino" Scalia--the fastest (and sharpest) tongue on the bench.

[Intheknow]

There were far more Democrats in the 90s - I regularly saw Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy and a lot of heavyweights; in Leahy's case, his wife was on the board. And yes, they all went to performances, although not regularly. Unfortunately, I had the painful experience of having to sit next to Ted Stevens, the reviled former senator from Alaska at a board function, he clearly hated being there.