Justice Ginsburg makes operatic debut

WASHINGTON — The curtain rose on Act 2 of “The Daughter of the Regiment,” revealing the figure of a tiny woman barely visible in a large dome chair with her back to the audience.

Cheers and prolonged applause rang out from the crowd at the Kennedy Center on Saturday night even before Ginsburg, a lifelong opera lover who was making her official operatic debut, opened her mouth to speak as the imperious Duchess of Krakenthorp.

Looking frail but determined and wearing an elegant acid green silk dress, the 83-year-old justice read from a crib sheet a series of qualifications that sounded very much like requirements for high political or judicial office.