Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tribute To Scalia

STEPHEN R. BROWN/AP

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remembers her friend and fellow opera lover Justice Antonin Scalia: 'We were best buddies' - Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia’s ideologies were drastically dissonant, but off-the-bench, their friendship was harmonic.

“From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies,” Ginsburg recalled Sunday, a day after Scalia’s unexpected death at age 79 rocked the U.S. Supreme Court and an already volatile presidential election cycle.

The odd couple, Ginsburg and Scalia, brought their families together at New Year’s Eve parties and bonded over vacations. They also shared a devotion to opera.

The rare affection between two people — who couldn’t be more different — was the subject of Derrick Wang’s comic opera titled “Scalia/Ginsburg” that debuted in 2015.

“We are different, we are one,” said Ginsburg, 82, quoting Wang’s lyrics in her tribute to Scalia.

She fed off of Scalia's conservative, colorful rhetoric to make her liberal arguments even stronger. She remembered her friend’s three-decade Supreme Court career for his “captivating brilliance and wit.”

Scalia had “a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh,” Ginsburg said.

“We disagreed now and then,” Ginsburg admitted. “But when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation.”

She recalled one of Scalia’s favorite moments from their time together — the time he joined two Washington National Opera tenors to sing a medley.

“He was, indeed, a magnificent performer,” Ginsburg said. “It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend.”