Conductor James Levine, who ruled the Metropolitan Opera for more than four decades before being left out when his health deteriorated and was fired for sexual improprieties, died. He was 77 years old.
Levine died in Palm Springs, California, of natural causes, said his 17-year-old doctor, Dr. Len Horovitz, on Wednesday.
Levine made his Met debut in 1971 and became one of the company’s leading artists in more than a century of history, conducting 2,552 performances and governing his repertoire, orchestra and singers as musical or artistic director from 1976 until forced by general manager Peter Gelb in 2016 due to Parkinson’s disease.
Levine became emeritus music director and remained head of his young artist program, but was suspended on December 3, 2017, the day after conducting a Verdi Requiem in what turned out to be his final performance, after reports in the New York Post and in the New York Times of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1960s.
He was dismissed the following March and never again governed. He was scheduled to perform a comeback performance for the Ein Deutsches Requiem de Brahms in January in Florence, Italy, but the show was canceled due to the new coronavirus pandemic.
“No artist in the 137-year history of the Met has had an impact as profound as James Levine,” said Gelb in a statement. “It raised the Met’s musical standards to new and higher levels.”
Levine was considered the best American conductor after Leonard Bernstein’s death in 1990. While he has raised the quality of the orchestra to the highest level since the company’s inception in 1883, his health has become a problem for more than a decade.
Levine started conducting while sitting in a chair in late 2001, and when tremors in his left arm and leg became noticeable in 2004, he said they started a decade earlier. His health worsened in 2006, when he stumbled and fell on stage at Boston’s Symphony Hall during the ovations that followed a performance and ruptured the rotator cuff, which required shoulder surgery.
He underwent an operation in 2008 to remove a kidney and another in 2009 to repair a herniated disc in his back. He then suffered spinal stenosis, which led to surgery in May and July 2011. He underwent another operation in September after falling and damaging a vertebra, an injury that left him aside until May 2013, when he returned and was driven of a motorized wheelchair that he would use for the rest of his career.
With Levine switching to emeritus, Yannick Nezet-Seguin was hired in June 2016 to succeed him as music director from 2020-21, a schedule eventually extended over two seasons.
After allegations of sexual impropriety were made public, the Met hired former US Attorney Robert J Cleary of Proskauer Rose to head the investigation, and the company said more than 70 people were interviewed.
“The investigation revealed credible evidence that Levine was involved in sexually abusive conduct and harassment before and during his time at the Met,” the company said in a statement.
“The investigation also revealed credible evidence that Levine was involved in sexually abusive and harassing conduct against vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers, over which Levine had authority. In light of these findings, the Met concludes that it would be inappropriate and impossible for Mr. Levine to continue working at the Met. “
Levine sued the Met for breach of contract and defamation, seeking at least $ 5.8 million in damages. New York Supreme Court judge Andrea Masley dismissed all but one defamation charge, and the case was closed in 2019.
His brother Tom, an artist who was his longtime advisor, died in April last year at the age of 71 from leukemia.
Levine leaves his wife Suzanne Thomson, his longtime partner he married last year, according to Andrea Anson of his agency; sister Janet Levine and her husband Kenneth Irwin.