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 on March 9 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 “Requiem” by Verdi in what turned out to be his final performance, after reports on New York Post and The New York Times of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1960s.
He was fired on the following March 12 and never served again. He had been scheduled to make a return presentation for Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” on January 17 and 21 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.”
Known for his thick hair and an ever-present towel slung over his shoulder during rehearsals, Levine greatly expanded the Met’s repertoire and was especially praised for his performances by Wagner, Verdi and Berg. He was closely associated with Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and Birgit Nilsson, who spoke on stage around 2 am, near the end of Levine’s 25th anniversary concert, which lasted for about eight hours at the Met in 1996.
Levine was loved by singers for forcing orchestras to meet their needs.
“Trust is a tremendous part of an artist’s performance, especially singers, because a singer cannot assess what is going on,” he told the Associated Press in 1996. “It’s in your body. This is not where the piano keys are or where the cello is. For me, singers are heroic in that respect. “
He has become a dominant figure in the media age, making hundreds of audio and video recordings that have been commercially released or distributed by the Met and its media partners.
In addition to his long tenure at the Met, Levine was music director for the Ravinia Festival of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of 1973-93, the Munich Philharmonic of 1999-2004 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra of 2004-11. He conducted at the 1982-98 Richard Wagner Festival, including a new production of “Der Ring des Nibelungen” in 1994. He was a regular at the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Levine was considered the best American conductor after Leonard Bernstein’s death in 1990.
Born on June 23, 1943 in Cincinnati, the grandson of a singer and the son of band leader Lawrence Levine and Broadway actress Helen Goldstein, Levine began taking piano lessons at the age of 4 and made his professional debut with the Symphony Orchestra of Cincinnati at 10 at the “Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 2.”
That same year, he started piano lessons with Walter Levin, the main violinist of the LaSalle Quartet. At 18, Levine became the first double piano conductor to graduate from the Juilliard School in New York.
He studied piano with Rudolph Serkin at the Marlboro Festival and with Rosina Lhevinne at Juilliard, spending 13 summers at the Colorado Aspen Festival. After three years at Juilliard, he reached graduate level, then dropped out to become an apprentice to George Szell at the Cleveland Orchestra, where he spent six years.
Levine made his Met debut in “Tosca” with Grace Bumbry and Franco Corelli on June 5, 1971. The following February, he became the principal conductor of the 1973-74 season of the Met, assisting musical director Rafael Kubelik, and became became musical director with the 1976 -77 season. In the 1986/87 season, he was promoted to artistic director – with almost complete control of the repertoire and cast – and drew criticism as other great conductors moved away.
He led more than 110 performances in one season in the 1980s, including tours. Levine was demoted to music director when he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2004.
Levine was known for restoring cuts to operas that had been shortened a long time ago. He favored a central core of Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Mozart and Strauss, such as “Idomeneo” and “” La Clemenza di Tito “by Mozart, and” I Vespri Siciliani “by Verdi.
“If you make the ‘Ring’ and it fails, it is such a complex undertaking that there can be a lot of good things in it,” he said. “But you can’t do a bel canto opera with a weakness in the cast. Because there is nothing there, except that … It would be a waste of everyone’s time. “
Levine also boosted and led the Met debut for “Porgy and Bess” by the Gershwins. He was criticized for the lack of contemporary music – he said the Met was such an institution that orders came slowly – and as a symphonic conductor he defended composers Elliot Carter, John Corigliano and Charles Wuorinen.
While he 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 lead 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, asking for 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 2020 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.
In memory donations can be made to The James L. Levine Charitable Foundation, PO Box 3542, New York, NY 10008.