July, 2015
By Nancy E. Joerg, Esq.
On Friday, July 10, 2015, I flew to Dulles airport in Washington D.C., rented a car, and found myself out in the extremely beautiful and very rural area of Virginia where the Castleton Music Festival is located. The Castleton Festival takes place each summer on a very picturesque 650 acre farm, surrounded by gorgeous rolling hills, the Shenandoah National Park, and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The opera, Scalia/Ginsburg, is based on the opinions and dissents of two very vocal Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Scalia is the outspoken and fiery “originalist” conscience of the Supreme Court, and Justice Ginsburg is a passionate advocate for equal rights, especially gender equality. Yet they are buddies. They often travel together, attend operas together, ring in the New Year together, and very much appreciate each other as colleagues and friends.
Recent high profile Supreme Court cases, such as the marriage equality Obergefell decision, have brought the sharp differences in judicial philosophy among the Supreme Court Justices into especially keen public awareness.
THEME OF THE OPERA: The theme of Scalia/Ginsburg is that, even though Scalia and Ginsburg are sharply divided on treatment of many constitutional issues, these two Justices of the Supreme Court are united in their deep respect for the institution of the Supreme Court. There is a beautiful duet towards the end of the opera entitled “We are Different, We are One.” In that duet, Scalia (in a role sung by a feisty black-robed tenor) and Ginsburg (played by a charming black-robed soprano) sing about the tremendous devotion that the Justices of the Supreme Court share for the court. They sing together:
“Separate strands unite in friction
To protect our country’s core.
This, the strength of our nation,
Thus is our Court’s design:
We are kindred,
We are nine.”
GINSBURG AND WANG WERE IN ATTENDANCE: Prior to the opera’s world premiere that evening, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a fascinating one hour talk about the law as it appears in the plots of many operas. Castleton opera singers sang and acted out Ginsburg’s humorous examples of the intertwining law and the opera.
Later that evening, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her son James Ginsburg (founder of Cedille Records in Chicago) attended the world premiere of Wang’s opera and sat two rows in front of me. Also, the composer (and librettist) of the opera, Derrick Wang, was present. The Castleton audience (containing, among others, many members of the Washington, D.C. legal community) warmly applauded both Ginsburg and Wang when they were introduced from the stage. Justice Scalia did not attend the premiere of Scalia/Ginsburg as he was in Rome.
COMPOSER DERRICK WANG: The composer, Derrick Wang, graduated from Harvard with a degree in music and then went on to Yale for a Masters in music. He then went to the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. While he was studying constitutional law there, he was struck by the operatic quality of Justice Scalia’s very dramatic and forceful opinions and dissents. Derrick Wang could hear a “rage aria” in his mind as he studied Scalia’s angry dissenting words. Derrick Wang also realized that the opinions and dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were very strong in a completely different way. Wang could hear a soprano singing her carefully crafted words.
CONTENT OF THE OPERA: Scalia/Ginsburg takes place in a chamber in the Supreme Court. There is just one set for the entire one act opera. There are only three singers: Scalia (a tenor), Ginsburg (a soprano), and a Commentator (bass-baritone) who is in the role of a celestial bureaucrat, sent to put Justice Scalia through three trials (to see if Scalia is guilty of “excessive dissenting”). The Commentator sings:
“I am the Commentator!
I come from a powerful administration,
And I am here to conduct an investigation
Into why you have managed to be so unrelenting
In spending so much of the past eight-and-twenty years in substantial, and
possibly excessive, dissenting.”
Both Scalia and Ginsburg are presented by Wang in a sympathetic light. It is not the intent of the opera to approve of one to the disadvantage of the other. On the contrary. Wang does a fine job of explaining the firmly held positions of both Scalia and Ginsburg.
The opera was charming, clever and amusing. Derrick Wang loaded Scalia/Ginsburg with musical jokes and clever references from Scalia’s and Ginsburg’s legal opinions and public remarks. Classic Scalia phrases such as “argle bargle” and “sheer applesauce” were inserted into the libretto at key points, to the delight and applause of the enthusiastic audience.
Scalia sang in utter frustration:
“The Justices are blind!
How can they possibly spout this—?
The Constitution says absolutely nothing about this,
This right that they’ve enshrined—
When did the document sprout this?
The Framers wrote and signed
Words that endured without this;
The Constitution says absolutely nothing about this!”
Scalia sings to his good friend and colleague, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about her errors in interpreting the Constitution to include expanding rights:
“Oh, Ruth, can you read? You’re aware of the text,
Yet so proudly you’ve failed to derive its true meaning,
And never were so few
Rights made so numerous—
It’s almost humorous
What you construe!”
The music contains fragments from such classical music sources as Carmen, La Traviata, La Bohème, the Star Spangled Banner, and Mozart. This is an opera which will appeal to lawyers, Supreme Court watchers and opera lovers.
Ginsburg actually appears on the set of the opera by “crashing through a glass ceiling.” She is there to help Scalia pass his three trials as set by the Commentator.
Scalia sings a wonderful aria where he recalls his father as a man of great moral character who built stone stairs and was an immigrant who revered America and the fundamental and traditional values. Scalia sings:
“And so he taught me what he knew:
Follow the rules
Down to the letter:
Stay good and right and true,
For brains and brawn will sell without fail,
But character is never for sale.
His virtues,
His values,
They built stairs,
Lending me support
As I reached this Court,
Where I have judged and learned.”
The message of the opera is that the Supreme Court has justices who respect and care about each other at a deep and sincere level, even though they often have vastly different jurisprudential theories.
GINSBURG’S LATE HUSBAND: At the end of the opera was a nod to Justice Ginsburg’s late husband Marty Ginsburg who was a tax attorney. Marty had taught himself (early in their marriage) to cook elaborate French cuisine after he discovered his wife had no interest in cooking. (Currently there is a book sold in the Supreme Court gift shop entitled Chef Supreme which is a collection of Marty Ginsburg’s recipes.)
I highly recommend that anyone interested in the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the human drama surrounding these vital Supreme Court decisions attend a showing of Scalia/Ginsburg if it is given again in the future (I hope it will be; I would go again).
Derrick Wang’s score for the opera includes many direct quotations from the judicial writings of both Scalia and Ginsburg. Printed versions of the enjoyable and witty libretto for the opera have detailed footnotes citing not just the source of the text but the musical allusions. For those readers who are interested in the libretto, it can be found online in The Columbia Journal of Law & The Arts at: http://lawandarts.org/articles/scaliaginsburg-a-gentle-parody-of-operatic-proportions/.
Questions or comments? Contact attorney Nancy Joerg, Managing Shareholder of the St. Charles office of Wessels Sherman at (630) 377-1554 or via email at najoerg@wesselssherman.com
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