Correspondence
Correspondence JUDICIOUS JUDGES IN HIS PERCEPTIVE editorial ("The Roberts Effect," March 20), Terry Eastland noted that Chief Justice John Roberts "came from a court—the D.C. Circuit—where the...
...And Adams isn't stuck in a libretto when he writes...
...Circuit—where the chief judge urged colleagues to make serious efforts to find a broadly acceptable resolution...
...Even an experienced opera-goer would have difficulty identifying the emotions supposedly conveyed by Adams's music if he didn't know the words...
...Big gifts can indeed come with—er, in—small packages...
...But from my conversations with D.C...
...MICHAEL BARONE Washington, D.C...
...And I gather that Chief Judge Ginsburg is happy to credit his predecessor for his work in forging unanimity...
...He also examines original source material...
...Programme music—instrumental music depicting a scene—has a long history...
...Adams is showing the way to what could become a more mature tradition...
...Shipman may not enjoy the results, but Adams's music is art inspired by life...
...KELLY JANE TORRANCE RESPONDS: Porgy and Bess is indeed perhaps the most famous of American operas...
...Chief Judge Edwards was appointed to the bench by President Carter...
...What Adams did was to supply the music to accompany their words (in the case of Nixon in China, stupefyingly boring music...
...Circuit judges active and retired, appointed by presidents of both parties, I gather that the originator of this approach was Judge Harry Edwards, who served as chief judge from 1994 to 2001, about whom other judges continue to speak with glowing respect...
...I believe that one can just as well make art from a subject by creating music as well as by creating words...
...PAUL BEACH Eagan, Minn...
...This has resulted in a clear body of jurisprudence on a wide range of subjects...
...In fact, he would have difficulty even if he did know the words...
...JEROME S. SHIPMAN Potomac, Md...
...LOOPY ADAMS IN "Doctor Atomic" (March 20), Kelly Jane Torrance writes that "John Adams has made a career of creating art from recent events...
...he drops any part of it that doesn't fit his vision...
...But there are already any number of truly American operas...
...I certainly didn't mean to imply no good operas have been created in this country, but there aren't many that have clearly landed in the permanent repertoire...
...True, and the current chief judge, Douglas Ginsburg, deserves credit for encouraging judges to find broadly acceptable resolutions and to concur without separate opinions in unanimous decisions wherever possible...
...In point of fact, the people who created art from recent events, if indeed it be art, are his librettists: Alice Goodman for Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer and Peter Sellars for Doctor Atomic...
...Indeed, he's said that the first musical inspiration for Doctor Atomic hit him when he read a 1945 pamphlet on atomic energy...
...Torrance writes that "John Adams should be given credit for forging the way to a truly American opera tradition...
...BIG DADDY WITH ALL DUE RESPECT to Bosnia's Mustafa Ceric, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and other like-minded Muslim clerics, Gitmo's "Pimp Daddy," as described by Thomas Joscelyn in "It's Hard Out Here for an Iraqi" (March 27), is by far the most refreshing and uplifting voice of moderate Islam this American has heard since 9/11...
...The genre is still young here...
...In a time when political commentators of all stripes are inclined to see judges as (political) party animals, I think Chief Judge Edwards deserves credit in the pages of The Weekly Standard for his contribution to judicial fairness and excellence...
...One of them is called Porgy and Bess, libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, music by a composer named George Gershwin...
Vol. 11 • April 2006 • No. 28
