You may have thought you caught up with the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg, US Supreme Court justice, last night on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” but you would have been mistaken. The star of the bench was live, but on a different stage.
Ginsburg joined the opening night cast of “The Daughter of the Regiment” at the Washington National Opera, playing the Duchess of Krakenthorp.
While the justice did not sing, she did have a speaking role.
“Dropping traditions that have worked and continue to work is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” she said, in a line that echoed her own from the 2013 Supreme Court voting rights case Shelby County v. Holder.
“Throwing out pre-clearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” she wrote in her dissent.
A well-known theater and opera fan, this was far from Ginsburg’s first foray onto the stage. While it was her Washington National Opera debut, she has appeared previously in “Ariadne auf Naxos” in 1994 and 2009, “Die Fledermaus” in 2003, “Henry VI” in 2014, and most recently this summer in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.”
Ginsburg has long been a supporter of the arts, a love she shared with Antonin Scalia, her late colleague on the bench and ideological foil. The odd couple were celebrated just last year in an opera baring their name, Scalia/Ginsburg.
