The Eyes of the Law: Justices Scalia and Ginsburg at the Opera
Despite their ideological differences, Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg bond over their shared love for the opera. Both judicial luminaries attended Saturday’s opening night performance of Ariadne auf Naxos, at the Washington National Opera. If you’re into Article III celebrity sightings, the D.C. opera house is where it’s at.
Not only did the justices attend the opera; they also participated. An eyewitness evaluation of their performances, plus a photo of Justice Scalia with a sexy soprano in his lap, after the jump.
Here’s the report of one audience member, forwarded to us by a loyal ATL reader
At some point, on the stage there were two tables of “guests” at the mansion where the opera was supposedly being enacted. At those tables there were several DC “stars”; most noticeable was Scalia, who got to have the perky young soprano (a phenomenal Russian [Lyubov Petrova]) sit on his lap — the audience laughed bountifully.At the end, before the actors/singers would rejoice in their well deserved standing ovation, these guys at the side tables bowed to sound applause. Only then I also saw Ruth Ginsburg beside Scalia. Eleanor Norton was also in the group. What a seemingly friendly chap Scalia actually is.
Indeed. Sarah Jessica Parker, whose cigarette was lighted by the gentlemanly justice, agrees.
Josh Blackman raises a jurisprudential inquiry: “Justice Scalia found in Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc. and Erie v. Pap’s A.M. that nude dancing is not protected speech under the First Amendment. I wonder how Justice Scalia would consider this performance?”
Scalia receives lap dance at Washington National Opera. Is this protected speech?
[Josh Blackman’s Blog]
Justices Ginsburg, Scalia onstage in Washington National Opera’s ‘Aridane’ [Clef Notes / Baltimore Sun via How Appealing]
Scalia, Ginsburg play nonspeaking opera roles [AP via How Appealing]
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First to say I would love to see them do a duet!
It is high time we have some reporting on high culture. I feel defiled whenever I read about the popular culture of the less well-educated, barbarians and philistines.
JaKe,
It's over. Your "dad" drives a Honda. You are a law student who thinks it is sweet to slave away on law review. You think you are an associate, even though you have not passed the bar. Stop. Not funny. Really lame.
JaKe, remember, Elie went to Harvard and that didn't stop him from failing the bar. Hubris begets nemesis.
are the people who respond to jake as though he were serious actually meta-trolls? i . . . can't . . . figure . . . it . . . out . . . .
Yeah, if jake really does attend law school to begin with. prolly just another lame troll that got bored of rubbin' it off way too much.
Clarence Thomas drives Scalia there and waits in the car.
to 6- how can one ever get bored of that?
There was a time when going to the Met was a pleasant experience. I enjoyed seeing La Traviata, Electra, La Boheme, etc. every year at the Met. Unfortunately, too many plebes have access to the Met and it has sullied my experiences as of late. I now find it much more culturally invigorating to take a cd of Maria Callas and have the disc jockey at Rick's Cabaret play it in the VIP lounge while a vixen undulates parts of her body to my viewing pleasure.
4, that's only because the NY bar exam is racist, just like the LSAT.
I wonder if Scalia wanted to sodomize her.
9 - Oh, I see, attending the Met is less classy than tipping the dj at a strip club to play your favorite tunes? Weak post.
Wanted? He probably did.
PE,
Plebes like Fordham Law School students who drive beat up Hondas like you?
Pussy.
JaKe,
I would very much like to make some sex with your mouth and anus hole. Please thank you much.
ShaFeef
Supreme CourTTT
"La Boheme. It's an opera."
This comment is addressed to post no. 12.
Rick's Cabaret is not a "strip club." I doubt peons like you have the means to access the Cabaret's VIP lounge, which is why I take great pleasure in knowing that the club is exclusive and will not allow commoners such as yourself to be near people of high caliber like myself. If you want to pretend you are high society by sipping cheap champagne or wine during intermission at the Met, be my guest but know that it will never make you a sophisticated peer.
Black Robes
Black Starfish
Black Taco
"a vixen undulates parts of her body to my viewing pleasure" sounds like a strip club... I'd file this as a lipstick on a pig scenario.
The "D.C. opera house"? Please - its the Kennedy Center Opera House.
I wonder if Scalia (Catholic) and Ginsburg (Jewish) discussed Scalia's stupendously ignorant exchange with counsel (Peter Eliasberg) during oral argument in Salazar v. Buono, which dealt with the constitutionality under the First Amendment's Establishment Clause of the display in the Mojave National Preserve of an eight-foot-high Christian cross, originally erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a memorial to soldiers killed in military service.
This exchange followed a passing observation by counsel to the effect that the cross honored Christians rather than "all of the people for fought for America in World War I."
JUSTICE SCALIA: The cross doesn't honor non-Christians who fought in the war? Is that -- is that --
MR. ELIASBERG: I believe that's actually correct.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Where does it say that?
MR. ELIASBERG: It doesn't say that, but a cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins, and I believe that's why the Jewish war veterans --
JUSTICE SCALIA: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the -- the cross is the -- is the most common symbol of -- of -- of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me -- what would you have them erect? A cross -- some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?
MR. ELIASBERG: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew. (Laughter.)
MR. ELIASBERG: So it is the most common symbol to honor Christians.
JUSTICE SCALIA: I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion.
MR. ELIASBERG: Well, my -- the point of my -- point here is to say that there is a reason the Jewish war veterans came in and said we don't feel honored by this cross. This cross can't honor us because it is a religious symbol of another religion.
At this point, Chief Justice Roberts changed the subject, mercifully saving Justice Scalia from further embarrassment.
I just want to wish Justice Ginsburg good luck- we're all counting on her.
and so I say now:
Hang on Ruthie, Ruthie hang on
Hang on Ruthie, Ruthie hang on
Yes, 22, no doubt they discussed that oral argument exchange, because really, what else would one discuss at the opera? In the streets they talk of little else.
Ginsburg and Scalia have been good friends for decades, at least since they served on the DC Circuit together in the early 1980s, so I suppose you think it must have come as quite a shock to her to discover that Scalia has different views from her about the scope of the Establishment Clause. Someday, she may notice that he is a conservative, and then all hell will really break loose.
Or maybe their warm personal relationship is just an example of how intelligent people can disagree about important things, but still remain good friends. Its an example that people like you would do well to emulate.
25,
You may want to re-read the exchange. It was not about the scope of the Establishment Clause. It was about Scalia arguing that the cross is the most common resting place of "the dead." Not the Christian dead. The dead. He's a fucking ignoramus and so are you if you believe that has anything to do with the scope of the Establishment Clause.
26. Justice Scalia is undoubtedly vastly more intelligent than you are. While I agree that he should have thought twice before making the comment you have fixated on, one poorly considered comment does not an ignoramus make. Ignorance is drawing broad, judgmental inferences from isolated quotations.
But I suppose you are of such unequaled brilliance that you have never said something stupid in your life. At the very least, I'm sure the public figures you admire have never, in an isolated quotation, said something ill considered. You sir, are a moron.
22/26,
Read and understood, but your distinction is completely beside the point. Justice Ginsburg apparently does not believe Justice Scalia to be an ignoramus, copulating or otherwise, and in fact regards him as a good friend. Take a lesson from her, and let the bitterness go - you will feel better for it.
-25
I had the opportunity to hear Scalia speak once, and can say that he was not exactly charming. He used his microphone to talk over a kid who was asking a serious question. Classy.
27,
Yes, he is undoubtedly more intelligent than I am. But it is not unreasonable to expect that the nine most (supposedly) learned legal minds in the country would understand that the Christian cross is a symbol of Christianity. Moreover, to claim that this comment is the sole evidence upon which to characterize Scalia as closed-minded, ignorant and bigoted is laughable. He has a veritable smorgasboard of poorly reasoned, ignorant, the-world-revolves-around-the-heterosexual-Christian-white-male-oriented opinions to choose from.
17 - Great Quote!
http://www.gmsplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/normandy-cemetery.jpg
http://mazh.com/pics/FR-Normandy-Colleville%20Cem.jpg
http://mazh.com/pics/FR-Normandy-Omaha%20Beach%20Cem.jpg
i still cannot believe there are people who are so self-absorbed that they are offended by PE's posts....
I just want to wish Justice Ginsburg good luck- we're all counting on her.
I just want to wish Justice Ginsburg good luck- we're all counting on her.
Why can't the dead be honored by a different religion's symbol?