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VIDEO: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer reacts to Derrick Wang’s opera ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’

VIDEO: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer reacts to Derrick Wang’s opera ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’

VIDEO: Watch U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s reaction to Derrick Wang’s opera Scalia/Ginsburg

Justice Breyer weighed in on Scalia/Ginsburg during a talk with Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman at the 92nd Street Y in New York: 

“I heard some of [Scalia/Ginsburg] — it was rather good, actually.…” (Breaking into a smile) “It’s nice. The music’s nice.”

Justice Breyer was referring to a 2014 conversation with Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center. After hearing excerpts from the opera earlier that evening, Justice Breyer said, “I liked [Scalia/Ginsburg] very much.” When asked which composer’s style he would like to represent him on stage, Justice Breyer replied, “Well, who’s the most chaotic? I thought possibly Mussorgsky!”*

Watch Justice Breyer’s talk for the National Constitution Center below:

*Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) is perhaps most famous for composing the opera Boris Godunov, the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition,** and the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain (featured in the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia).

**Apple II game-players of the 1980s and 1990s may recognize Mussorgsky’s opening “Promenade” as the level-completion music in Path Tactics.

Ginsburg with a “U”

Ginsburg with a “U”

Read the complete text of Derrick Wang’s opera ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’!

Read the complete text of Derrick Wang’s opera ‘Scalia/Ginsburg’!