VIDEO (C-SPAN): L.A. Times Supreme Court correspondent: ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’ libretto is ‘wonderful’
In a July 2, 2015 panel discussion on C-SPAN, David Savage (Supreme Court Correspondent for the Los Angeles Times) calls the Scalia/Ginsburg libretto “wonderful” — and follows up on his June 2015 article about the Scalia/Ginsburg friendship and opera:
TRANSCRIPT (EXCERPT):
Arthur Spitzer (Moderator; Legal Director, ACLU of the National Capital Area):
We now have an opera that’s going to have its world premiere [on Saturday, July 11, 2015] called Scalia/Ginsburg. David, you wrote a piece about them and the opera [on June 22: “BFFs Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia Agree to Disagree”]…
David Savage (Supreme Court Correspondent, Los Angeles Times):
The [editor] who was running this [story in the LA Times] called and said, “Do you normally cover opera?” He wanted me to come out and write about some other operas. And I said, “No, I don’t…”
As far as the opera…[the libretto of Scalia/Ginsburg] is just wonderful to read! And the fellow Derrick Wang who [created] this has footnoted all of it with actual citations of [the Justices’] statements. I mean, he’s used their words. Scalia is singing about how “you justices are blind, you find things in the Constitution,” and then he gets imprisoned for “excessive dissenting” — and then Ruth Ginsburg breaks through a glass ceiling to…rescue him.
Anyway, I have not seen it yet. It’s July 11, [17,] and 19, but it sounds like — maybe I will switch to covering operas, it sounds delightful.
A.S.:
I think a line I got from reading your story was that the composer of the opera said that a lot of what he heard Scalia saying dissenting from the bench reminded him of these rage arias in Italian opera and it sounded like a very good character.
D.S.:
[Derrick Wang, the composer and librettist of Scalia/Ginsburg,] was a music major at Harvard and at Yale and then went to law school, and he actually says he was reading these dissents and says “Now here’s an operatic character: Scalia.” So that was the origin of the opera.…
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Sources:
VIDEO: Supreme Court Correspondents discuss Derrick Wang's opera 'Scalia/Ginsburg', C-SPAN [excerpt from ‘Reporters on 2014 Supreme Court Term,’ July 2, 2015]
