Auction of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handwritten notes about Derrick Wang’s work (ending Jan. 27, 2022)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handwritten notes about Derrick Wang’s work have come to auction online at Bonhams, January 19–27, 2022.
Lot 61 of The Library of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg consists of Justice Ginsburg’s handwritten notes about Derrick Wang’s opera Scalia/Ginsburg, in the context of the “musical jokes” noted in Derrick Wang’s 248 footnotes to an early version of the libretto published by the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts.
Description from Bonhams:
The Evolution of a Justice
RUTH BADER GINSBURG'S AUTOGRAPH NOTES ON OPERA AND LAW.
Autograph Manuscript, notes on opera and law, 1 p, in pencil on 8 1/2 x 11 inch lined notebook paper, some moisture staining.[*]
LAID INTO: Derrick Wang's "Libretto: Scalia/Ginsburg: A (Gentle) Parody of Operatic Proportions with Prefaces by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia." Appearing in The Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, Vol 38:2 (2015).
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such an ardent fan of the opera that, among other things, she often delivered a one-hour lecture titled "Opera and the Law," weaving together her two greatest fascinations. She was particularly delighted by Derrick Wang's Scalia/Ginsburg, written while he was a law student at the University of Maryland and inspired by the decisions he was reading in class. This combination of notes and the Scalia/Ginsburg libretto is probably a relic of one of her lecture appearances. At the top of the page she writes, "Listen for musical notes," followed by a long list of composers and titles.
*Might the condition of the paper be related to Justice Ginsburg’s statement, “I was weeping at the end [of the world premiere performance of Scalia/Ginsburg]”?
To view the online auction (ending Jan. 27, 2022), visit Lot 61 of The Library of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Further reading: James Tarmy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Private Library Is Coming to Auction, Bloomberg, Jan. 4, 2022 (“One lot includes Ginsburg’s handwritten notes on opera and the law.”).
Image source: Bonhams.
