Narrator and Orchestra
2222/2200/perc/strings

Script by Jane Vial Jaffe
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg liked to say:

“If I could choose the talent I would most like to have, it would be a glorious voice. I would be a great diva, but my grade school music teacher, with brutal honesty, rated me a sparrow, not a robin. I was told to mouth the words, never to sing them. Even so, I grew up with a passion for opera, though I sing only in the shower, and in my dreams. . . . My all-time favorite is The Marriage of Figaro.”

Mozart’s Figaro encountered injustices as a servant.
Mozart himself encountered injustices at the hands of patrons.
RBG encountered injustices on the path to achieving her goals.

She said: “No single law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment after graduating tied for first in my class.
I was denied clerkships because I was Jewish, a woman, and had a small child.
I was paid less than my male colleagues as a university professor because I had a “husband with a good paying job.”’

She was frustrated. She was angry. But she was determined. She adopted a wise motto:
“Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

“‘We the People of the United States, in order to achieve a more perfect union, should include more than half of the population. The genius of the Constitution is that ‘We the People’ has become ever more embracing.”

“I was proud to win a Supreme Court case for men who were discriminated against for doing child-rearing work.
I was proud to win a Supreme Court case for women who were being denied admission to the prestigious Virginia Military Institute.
I was proud to read a dissent aloud before the Court—a rare occurrence indeed—that led Congress to change a law. No longer could women be paid less than men, even if the discrimination occurred incrementally over a long period of time.

Did my mother’s death from cancer the day before my high school graduation test me?
Did my husband’s virulent cancer while we were in law school test me?
Did my own bouts with cancer test me?
Yes, but surviving cancer gives you “a zest for life that you didn’t have before.”’

We thought RBG was invincible, but we lost her at age eight-seven—still fighting for justice. If only her “protective umbrella” could have held out longer. Yet she was full of hope for the future:
“I’ll tell you the principal reason why I’m optimistic: it’s the young people I see. They are determined to contribute to the good of society, and to work together. They want to take part in creating a better world.”
When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court? When there are nine!”