James Levine was not a great man with a single tragic flaw.
He was an almost completely horrible person, with a single, tragic talent.
Ever since I heard the news, I’ve had a voice on one shoulder screaming “don’t write about James Levine.” And on the other shoulder, another voice is saying “write about James Levine.”
First, I don’t want to hurt or offend the many dear friends and colleagues close to me who admired him. Cincinnati, which is like a musical second home to me, was Levine’s home town. His mentor was the first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet, Walter Levin – I studied with the quartet’s second violinist and cellist. Many people I love and admire loved and respected Levine. I am sorry if this post causes them hurt or offence.
But, here I am, writing about James Levine.
Part One – “Stories about James Levine”
Everyone in the classical music business over the last forty years has heard the phrase “the stories about James Levine.”
Here are two stories which might not be quite what you think of when you hear that phrase.
A friend of mine was, for a time, producer and engineer of the radio broadcasts of the orchestra at Verbier when Levine was conducting regularly there. As is the case with the broadcasts of most festivals and orchestras, where there is more than one performance, either the producer or a member of the musical staff (at the Cincinnati Symphony it was usually one of us on the junior conducting staff who had been in the audience for all the performances) will select what they think are the best options and run those by the maestro before the ‘broadcast performance’ is edited together.
The situation my friend found himself working with Levine in was truly bizarre. At the end of each run of performances he would go to the maestro’s office. There he would see Levine and his brother Tom. My friend was not allowed to speak to Levine directly, but would say to Tom something like “I thought the first movement was the best on Sunday and the other three better on Saturday.” Then Tom would turn to James Levine and say “_________ says “the first movement was the best on Sunday and the other three better on Saturday.””
Bear in mind, my friend is in the room.
Jimmy would then say to Tom “Tell ______ that I would like to use the first and last movements from Sunday and the two middle movements from Saturday.” After which, Tom would turn to my friend and say “Maestro Levine says to use the first and last movements from Sunday and the two middle movements from Saturday.” My friend would confirm to Tom that, of course, that was a far better selection. Those would, indeed, be the movements he would use. Tom would relay that to Levine, who would nod silently. After which, my friend would be dismissed. And this is how he treated one of the top Tonmeisters in Europe, not some piddling assistant conductor. Even a Russian Czar would have been impressed.
Here’s another story.
A different friend worked in the classical department at a Tower Records in a major American city. One morning, he and his colleague arrived at work to a large box and a message saying “Levine’s Mahler 3 is out today. Put up this cardboard display for the LPs and the life-sized cutout of Levine at the top of the escalator before opening.” Many of you may still remember the halcyon days of record stores, where the classical managers presided over their departments with equal parts commanding knowledge and total authority. So it was in this Tower. These guys were used to deciding which Mahler 3’s were worthy of pushing based on their knowledge of 100 other versions. Their view was that Levine was not a good Mahler conductor, that his 3rd probably sucked, and they were not, in any case, going to race to put up all that tacky display stuff until they’d at least listened to it. Well, the shop opened at 10, and at 10:15, James Levine came scooting up the escalator looking for the life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself. He got to the top, stopped and stood there, his eyes narrowed, looking in vain for the missing shrine to his genius. He then turned around and left.
Minutes later, my friend got a phone call from Tower’s corporate office. Levine had called his manager, the manager had called the record company, and the record company had called Tower. This is how fast things can move when a ‘great man’s’ ego doesn’t get the feeding he thinks it deserves. The air was blue as the national head of the classical division explained in no uncertain terms that this was a world-class screw up, and that they had exactly 45 minutes to get the display up. They, of course agreed.
They then took the LP bin, the cardboard cut-out and all the Mahler 3 LPs out to the dumpster and threw them all away. Sure enough, a little while later, Jimmy came up the escalator, looked around briefly with an even darker expression, then turned and left.
I tell these stories not to be glib, but to make a point. The reason I decided to listen to the “write about James Levine” voice was that I couldn’t stand the “great musician, great guy, pity about the scandals,” fake dualism anymore. James Levine wasn’t a great figure with a single tragic flaw. You can’t be a lifelong sexual predator, grooming, coercing, blackmailing, bribing and manipulating children into being repeatedly raped and humiliated if you have just one tragic flaw. He could also be arrogant and petty enough to refuse to speak to his own producer, and insecure enough to involve his own manager and the president of a record company in a dispute over a life-size card-board cutout of him not being displayed in a record store.
Part Two – Boston
I’ve seen people do a lot of stupid and reckless stuff in my life.
But I’ve never, ever seen anything as stupid, reckless and irresponsible as the decision to turn over the keys to the Boston Symphony to James Levine. And yet, in obituary after obituary, I see respected critics talking about how Levine revived a moribund orchestra or raised the standards of their playing to electrifying heights. By my reckoning, I heard the BSO play live four or five times in the mid-late 90s, including two performances with Ozawa, one by Andrew Davis and one with Bernard Haitink. I gotta say, the orchestra sounded pretty damn good in all of those. Maestro Ozawa deserves a lot more credit and respect than he gets for his work in Boston.
By the time Levine got that job, “stories about James Levine” had been universally known about in the music business for more than 20 years. There were entire countries where he was reportedly not allowed to travel, and others where he could not be in a room with minors under any circumstances (including a children’s choir in a concert hall). That the BSO appointed Levine under the circumstances has to have been the most astonishing failure of either judgement or due diligence in the history of the performing arts. I have very little sympathy for the Met in this story, but they can at least plead that, when they hired the 27-year-old Levine, they didn’t know or understand what he was. By the time the BSO appointed Levine, everyone in classical music knew what he was. I remember telling a colleague at the time “when this comes out, the BSO may well go out of business.” I literally couldn’t imagine how such a colossal failure of judgement, which had to be facilitated by dozens of senior management members and the board of directors, could not bring the whole thing down once the truth was known outside the industry.
Why??????
Why risk the entire organisation, your professional reputation and the livelihood of all your musicians and team members for James Levine? The decision to appoint Levine had the potential to cost every member of that orchestra their job, their house, their health insurance, their retirement. And the people making that decision knew the risk they were taking. Is it even a risk, when your entire strategy boils down to the blind hope that American newspapers will continue not to report the worst kept secret in the music industry for the rest of eternity? That’s not a risk, that’s a death wish. And I just don’t think that Levine was a good enough symphonic conductor to merit such a risk. If he was really such a great conductor, why didn’t Berlin take him when Karajan died? Why didn’t Chicago choose him when Solti left? And on, and on…. In fact, other than Munich (who have long a soft spot for darkly crazy maesetri), no other orchestra that could afford him had ever wanted him as a music director.
The amazing thing under the circumstances was that Levine’s tenure in Boston was worse than I thought it would be, in ways I had never imagined. It was such a disaster that his criminality almost became a background issue. He demanded a FORTY MILLION DOLLAR “Jimmy is a genius” fund to pay for his ‘ambitious projects’ and required the players to agree to extra rehearsal time, but even in his first season, musicians began complaining that the maestro was spending those very expensive EXTRA rehearsals with his head buried in the score, sight-reading the music. Forty million dollars! Think how many commissions that could fund? How many scholarships? How many instruments for poor kids? That forty million could fund a world- class British professional chamber orchestra completely for anywhere from 10 to 90 years. Every musician, every staff member, every venue, every music hire. Has there ever been a year in classical music history when the total value of all the commissions paid to all the classical composers in the world combined added up to forty million dollars? Instead, they spent $40 million dollars so Levine could sight read in front of the BSO?
Levine’s much vaunted ‘commitment to new music’ at the BSO only really comprised two composers – Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen (with the notable exception of John Harbison’s Sixth Symphony). It is hard to imagine more forbidding repertoire for a symphonic audience, and listeners started staying home in droves. In one Carter performance, Levine reportedly got lost (Word on the street was that he turned two pages in a very difficult passage. It’s happened to me, and it happens to most conductors at some point.), and musicians describe Levine being unprepared and unaware of when they were faking.
There’s a long and necessary book to be written about Levine’s years in Boston. There are serious questions that need answering. How much money did he receive from the orchestra during his tenure and under what conditions? Was he paid for concerts he didn’t give? For seasons he wasn’t involved in? When he was injured and unable to conduct, did he help plan concerts? Raise money? Recruit board members? Teach? It is reported that in 2005, this great orchestra builder only attended 2 out of 16 auditions. How many did he attend in other years, if any? How was that forty million spent? What legacy did it create?
The wasted money, the repeated no-shows, the lack of interest the welfare of the institution… it beggars belief. His tenure apparently ended when he was so loopy on painkillers in a rehearsal that the musicians put their foot down in 2011 and said that had to be the last rehearsal. That decision probably saved the BSO, because it meant he was a fading memory by the time the US press finally broke their wall of silence on his criminal behavior in 2017. It also means that nobody involved in hiring Levine has faced any consequences for their decisions that I am aware of.
I’m not the only one to point out that the Met paid Levine $3.5 million in 2019, and the all the musicians in the orchestra not a penny since Covid. What is also worth pointing out is that Jimmy seemed just fine with that. What kind of “great colleague” sits on $3.5 million in blood money paid for with the innocence of children when his supposedly beloved orchestral colleagues are losing their homes right, left and centre? At the end of his life, the famously tough Lorin Maazel put much of his substantial wealth into supporting young musicians through his festival and his competition. Where was James Levine’s sense of duty and charity during Covid? Or in the preceding decades?
James Levine was not a great man with a single tragic flaw. He was an almost completely horrible person, with a single tragic talent.
Part Three – The Artistic Legacy
Was he the greatest American conductor of his generation?
He was very possibly the most gifted American performer of his generation. His ear, his memory, his knowledge of languages, his encyclopaedic knowledge of opera style and performance tradition are all legendary. He was a phenomenal pianist. But, for me, great musicians compose, explore and arrange. They research, they challenge assumptions, they create and they re-invent. He didn’t create, he didn’t compose, he didn’t expand the repertoire in a meaningful way through either the exploration of lost and unknown work, or through commissioning. He was, instead, the ultimate embodiment of the musical status quo, as was his overall leadership of the Met, which during his time was known for bland, middle of the road stagings.
I watched pretty much every Met broadcast he did on TV, and listened to hundreds of others on the radio. Looking back, everything he did was well-played and well-sung, and that’s something I can’t say about my own performing life, though I wish I could. The playing of the Met Orchestra (unpaid for a year at the time of his death) could be a thing of wonder. He had some fantastic collaborations with singers, no doubt about it. And some performances, like his Otello with Domingo, really thrilled me. But I can’t think of any opera in which his recording would be my first choice, and there are many where I feel that once you’ve heard the real thing, his interpretations seem pretty pale – particularly in Wagner. Without the world’s greatest singers at his side, I can’t think of a single symphonic recording of his that is of the first rank. I completely understand why my friend would not be bullied into making Levine’s Mahler 3 into the official version of ‘his’ classical department. I once listed to an entire CD of Schumann 3 on the radio because it was so leaden, dull and awful that I had to find out who it was. No prize for guessing who was conducting.
It astonishes me that some on the internet have chosen to defend Levine on the basis that he was a victim of ‘cancel culture.’ And that it’s not fair to disregard a life of ‘great’ music making because of a single character flaw or error of judgement. But let’s be real for a moment. We call misconduct misconduct because it is, by definition, improper. Sexual misconduct is particularly insidious, and always a serious matter, but on the scale of seriousness, spending fifty-plus years serial raping children is about as bad as it gets. Really, what could be worse? Chopping up grandma with an axe? At least she’s had a life, and her suffering was brief. Levine’s victims had their childhoods and their futures stolen from them, and they’ve had to live with the trauma of his acts for their entire lives. They will take the memory of the true face of James Levine to their graves. The dark face that many in the American musical firmament knew existed, but chose to conceal for decades.
Here’s what cancel culture is.
Cancel culture is that the voice on my shoulder saying “don’t write about James Levine” is saying things like “because you’ll never work at the BSO or the Met.” Well, they haven’t exactly been booking me every week, so that’s fine. That voice is saying “don’t question his musical genius, because the leading critics in America have spent the last 30 years telling everyone he’s the greatest conductor since Bernstein, and critics have long memories.” That voice is saying “don’t call out the complicity of the rich and powerful, because in addition to sitting on boards of directors that facilitated his criminality and covered up his crimes, they sit on boards of trusts and foundations that you need to support your work.” That voice is saying “don’t speak ill of the dead, it’s wrong.” Well, if someone is ‘ill’ and you can’t speak of them when they’re alive, and you can’t speak of them when they’re dead, then I guess you can’t speak ill of them at all. That voice is talking to me and MANY others like me this week. The fear in our industry is real. People don’t want a ‘reputation’. They don’t want to burn bridges. But, like Granny under the axe, I’ve lived, I’ve got a job (for now), and so here I am. Having seen a few of my friends and colleagues with more to lose than me speak the truth on this topic today, I want to stand with them.
UPDATE
Thanks to everyone for your words of support.
There are many interesting comments below, including ones from members of the BSO, the Met, the Chicago Symphony and many other orchestras. For some reason, my website is clipping it down to just the most recent ones. It’s worth the effort to click on ‘older posts’ and see what others have said.
That’s a scorcher of an opening thesis statement. All that time spent on symphonic openings wasn’t wasted. This is easily the best piece I’ve seen on the subject.
Thank you for speaking ugly truths to power and complacency. This is an incredibly important piece.
Very well said, Ken. Well done for stating plainly what far too many others have tiptoed around.
FINALLY. THANK YOU. Finally a good article about Levine.
I love your honesty – well spoken Ken!
This was a necessary commentary on a truly disgusting situation. Thank you for sharing it.
I agree completely about the need to credit others (I listened to a great deal of the Ozawa years) and your last point: It is the role of the established in a profession to be brave and frank about such grave offenses, because the cost to up and coming artists to do so may be too dear.
Bravo and thank you for putting your ass on the line. While your comments are wonderfully blunt, the last paragraph –about the culture & the enabling– are really the most horrible to read.
Change is needed. Thank you for taking a side.
I don’t care how great the talent of this individual was. If he was guilty of decades of child abuse he doesn’t merit a single accolade. His place was in jail, not in a concert hall.
The children who were his victim are not here on this Earth to suffer at his hands (or any other). He and people of his ilk deserve the Marino Faliero treatment.
Serial abusers should always be called out on their abuse and they should suffer the pain of being scorned by a society they wish to be no part of.
Bravo. This took some moxie to write but such pieces must be written so that
another deplorable situation like this can’t sink such deep roots again.
Thank you for a brilliant article! We need this kind of truth, always!
A brave and candid piece. Art cannot be a ticket to excuse vile behavior. Many years ago, Norman Mailer defended the convict who wrote “In the Belly of the Beast,” even when the convict stabbed an innocent young waiter, an aspiring actor, to death in a restaurant. Mailer was all excuses on behalf of the murderer. It was the prison system’s fault, the indifferent public’s fault, the system’s fault. And, anyway, Mailer argued, the convict’s writing talent was all that mattered. I am a writer and have loved literature my entire life. But I am also a father. And as a father, I felt Mailer was terribly wrong. The poor murdered boy’s life was worth more than any book the convict ever wrote or could write.
Shame on everyone that knew all along and stayed silent.
And Levine should rot in hell.
This is an amazing post. I appreciate it so much and thank you for it. Kudos too to your courage for publishing it.
Thanks, Ken.
The BSO came to Davies during SFS’s centennial season, and were pretty variable: magnificent in Ravel and Carter, blarey and undisciplined in other rep. Levine was injured and Morlot conducted.
Thank you. It was time someone finally said it. All if it. Too bad it couldn’t be said any earlier.
We’ve not met, but if we do, I’ll hug you for this. Covid or no.
Thank you so much. Means a lot to me and others like me.
This is – far and away – the best writing on this terrible man I’ve seen. It is also the only writing I’ve read today that aligns with my feeling that what and who you are as a human being comes first. Talent, skill, accomplishment in a field all come second. Even a “born musician” comes into this world first as a person; it is only later that the musician within shows. As people sharing this planet with so many others, we have moral and ethical obligations toward our fellow humans. That’s part of living in a civilization, part of being civilized, as opposed to living in a band of brigands.
I’ve seen people today who have described Levine’s activities as episodes that “tarnish his reputation” and human failings that some have written about in terms of “we all make mistakes and none of us want our lives remembered only for those mistakes, so just remember the good he did and let the man rest in peace.” It boggles my mind that anybody could look at Levine’s life and simply see “mistakes”; a mistake is losing one’s temper in a moment of frustration, or getting a speeding ticket by driving at an unsafe speed, or buying milk when your wife asked you to bring home half and half. Raping children is not a “mistake” – it is a crime for which Levine would spend decades behind bars, were he not supported by the powerful in charge of the MET, the BSO, and other entities.
The world has a population quickly approaching eight billion people. Of those, hundreds if not thousands have been trained in the art of conducting. While it’s true Levine possessed great talent, it is also true that many other conductors could have done the jobs he did without the abusive and narcissistic behaviors he perpetrated. Could they have done as good a job? In some areas, most certainly, and in other areas, maybe not…but we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and there are too many inspiring musicians in this world who don’t spend their off hours engaging in the most loathsome forms of criminality to argue that Levine’s musical “genius” means, essentially, that he was “above the law” and the “only” person who could have done all the monumental things he is being raised on a pedestal for. The man was sick, he was a criminal, and he doesn’t deserve “credit” for his music making…he had that for more than half a century, more than most people will ever have, so having received his riches while here on Earth he does not deserve more riches in Heaven as well. There is only one place for an “almost completely horrible person, with a single, tragic talent” and that is Hell, for in his Earthly life he sent how many innocent victims there ahead of him?
Well done, perfectly and courageously put. it stank all the way down the line but sadly the profession is full of yes-persons with no ears and no guts. And as regards the single talent, it was in my view nothing very special anyway I never heard anything actually interesting from him.
This is so well said. Thank you for your bravery!
Bravo. All I’d add is that every unresolved question you have about his time in Boston (was he helping with planning or raising money during his long layoffs, was he paid for seasons he didn’t conduct at all, etc.) applies equally to his last decade at the Met. The $3.5 million settlement of his spite suit is only the tip of the iceberg. The amounts he was being paid in those “emeritus” seasons — it’s there in black and white in tax documents — was obscene, far above the house’s supposed top performance fees. If one could say these late Levine performances were brilliant or even above average, it would be one thing, but he was by that point severely compromised, uncertainly getting through familiar scores with a lot of help from his friends and a lot of anxiety on the part of everyone involved.
His fan cult will not care. To some, nothing will make a dent in the narrative that Jimmy was a genius; Jimmy’s mere presence inspired the orchestra to be better; Jimmy WAS the Met. But hagiography matters less to me than good reportage. A New York Times piece detailed the lengths gone to by the prompter, the chorus director, and the concertmaster to keep those ’15 Tannhäusers from collapsing (he conducted no more Met Wagner after that). Another piece in the same paper from 2004 quoted orchestra members that they were already having trouble following him.
On attending auditions: I don’t know about Munich or Boston, but Ms. Fiedler’s 2002 book Molto Agitato, which is generally flattering and discreet where Levine is concerned, quotes orchestra members that he almost never attended auditions, and the few players he did insist on were terrible and either left quickly or were demoted. One can only speculate about why he would want “terrible” players around. I wonder what they looked like.
I wonder as to the validity of the Chicago Tower story (which wasn’t around in Chicago and NY when the M3 was released), which I’ve heard in another form. If RCA was willing to pay for store space for a display, no competent manager would lose income for the business. He’d get fired in a minute.
Fabulously said. Easily the best piece I’ve seen on the subject. Like all megalomaniacs, his undoing was by his own hand.
Fabulously said: thank you. Like all megalomaniacs, his undoing was by his own hand.
relieved for children, that JL died
furious that JL died unpunished
It wasn’t Chicago
Thank you.
Very much.
Excellent article, Levine represented the ugliest side of our profession.
Thank you, Raphael
Thank you so much, Lara
Thanks, Tom. Much appreciated!
Brilliant and spot on. Thank you for your articulate and truthful account.
Maestro thank you for being the only person to frame Levine’s death the way it deserves to be framed. The irony for me in reading your is piece is, I actually think the Mahler 3 (also the 5th and especially the 9th) is actually pretty good and one of the better recordings be made.
Thank you for this. It encapsulates so much of what I have been thinking for a long time. The hero-worship of the “great conductor” is one of the industry’s lamest, most insidious habits. As a composer, I so appreciated your thoughts on those who create. (Indeed, how many composers could’ve been commissioned to write entire operas with the equivalent amount of just one of his concert fees?) If I could acknowledge any meaningful contribution, at least he set down some important documents of (then) contemporary music. Still, was it really him or the CSO musicians? I’m fairly certain they’d sound as good with anyone else on the podium—I’m not convinced that his vaunted musicianship was of any greater value than that of any single player in those ensembles he led. Plus, he was a monster who committed unspeakable crimes. Let’s never forget that.
Brave piece Ken. The true scandal is how those with power aid and abet abuse by turning a blind eye for the sake of reputation and prestige. I agree that a true conductor has to be an artistic adventurer not a greedy money making machine. Levine may have had a dark charisma which appealed to the moguls of the music industry as well as some considerable musical gifts, but he became his own cardboard cutout. It is a reminder always to be sceptical about hype, limitless money and the glamour of big names and institutions.
Bravo Ken. Well reasoned and well written. I still think you should have a Uni position!!! I’d do a degree with you in a heartbeat.
This is the best writing on JL so far. Thank you for being brave and thorough, and also for your incredible dexterity in writing. I hope you (or someone) will tackle an exposé on the cult who enabled this monster for 50 years.
Bravo for rightly calling out the toxicity of hero worship. The best piece I have yet seen on the topic of Levine.
Thank you for listening to the voice that told you to write this.
You have shared a unique perspective on the subject’s acts of what can only be described as pure arrogance (probably masking deep insecurities), addressed the incredulity—shared by others but perhaps not dare articulated, especially at the time—at the BSO hiring, and you dared challenge the label of “genius” that is far too often and too easily associated with the subject’s work.
As a member of the MET Orchestra for twenty-eight years, it is Part III that resonated with me personally. Granted, conductors are notoriously egotistical (but I don’t mean to disparage you in any way! ????), but the prevailing attitude by far too many of my colleagues and other company members—that no one else could come close to the subject’s performances—was a stifling environment in which to make music, to say the least.
As it was, the subject made sure that no other maestros of note were allowed to conduct at the MET while he was there, with one exception: Carlos Kleiber. Some conductors of note were supposedly made offers, but the conditions of such offers were said to be far from enticing, to the point of being insulting. Never would a new production and/or a telecast in conjunction with a run of performances be offered. Nor would the offer come with the seemingly limitless rehearsal hours afforded to the Music Director himself. Is it any wonder that any reputable conductor of note—even the few invited—said, “I’ll pass,” considering the stinginess of the offers?
Although I have strong feelings about both the subject and his career, I have not chosen to articulate my thoughts since his passing except in the comment here and in a comment that I made in response to a Facebook post made by a former MET Orchestra colleague. Like others commenting on his post, I found the fact that he so easily and glibly dismissed the subject’s criminal behavior in his homage abhorrent.
Plenty of others, however, took this person to task for his “white washing” of the scope of the individual’s life as a predator. There was little more that my voice could have added there.
Rather, it was my former colleague’s deification of the subject’s body of work and his closing sentence—“The opera world has lost its preeminent maestro,” that compelled me to speak up in that space.
Because your assessment of the subject’s contributions to the classical music world at large are similar to my own, I thought you might find the comment I made to my former colleague’s post of interest. At last count, my comment had received a combination of “likes”, “loves,” “surprised” emojis, and “hug” emojis upwards of fifty, so I gather my perspective was largely welcome (even if not by my former colleague.)
For context, I should mention that this former colleague joined the orchestra in the late 1970’s and, therefore, experienced more of what might be considered the subject’s most highly acclaimed and truly successful periods of music-making than I did, joining the orchestra as I did in 1992. The colleague retired in 2007.
Here’s what I wrote, edited somewhat:
“You are entitled to your opinion, and you certainly saw more of the “early years” than I did—although I was a part of a whole lot of stellar performances with him conducting—particularly Mozart. (I joined the orchestra in 1992.)
But summing up his years of criminal behavior—literally and figuratively, which I believe it to be—as a “fondness for teenage boys” is a cop-out, I’m afraid. The description is far too benign. It was serial predatory behavior perpetrated by a powerful individual that resulted in ruined careers and pain and suffering for those who were harassed and abused.
But I actually also differ from you in my assessment of his musical career as well, having played in the orchestra many years after you had departed.
As much as Levine is credited with building the orchestra, it was the orchestra who saved HIM on countless occasions well before his physical infirmities and limitations were more widely talked about and noticed. It was particularly rich when, on those few occasions that we did not collectively interpret some wildly erratic gesture the same way and ensemble issues ensued, he blamed US for not following him!
After he returned from his extended absence, we found ourselves having to constantly watch the concert master and section leaders pretty much exclusively in order to stay together. For the most part, we stayed together DESPITE him by that point. If you don’t believe me, watch the Tannhäuser Prelude in the Live in HD.
But I have also experienced something else in my twenty-eight years in the orchestra that you never did: I have had the opportunity to play repertoire that was previously his exclusive domain under other reputable conductors at the MET—conductors he never allowed to conduct at the MET when he was there.
As musically gifted as he was—and he was—his ego kept you and others including me from what could have been some remarkable musical experiences. (Remember the Solti Mahler V at Carnegie Hall that had been scheduled and announced but never happened because Solti died that year? Too bad that invitation hadn’t been extended much earlier.) Only relatively recently have the orchestra and the public gotten a taste of what “might have been.”
You didn’t play Pelléas and Rosenkavalier with Rattle. You didn’t play Tristan with Barenboim and Rattle. You didn’t play Parsifal with Gatti. You didn’t play Elektra under Salonen and Luisi. You didn’t play early Verdi under Muti. You didn’t play Lulu under Luisi. You didn’t play Wozzeck with Yannick.
Oh, and you never played a note of a Bruckner symphony…at least not with the MET Orchestra. We did a fabulous Bruckner VII at Carnegie Hall with YNS.
And let me tell you: you REALLY missed something.
We ALL missed something.”
Thank you again for your post. It is brilliant and insightful, and—like you—I look forward to the truth coming out about the backstory in Boston. And other places.
Susan Spector
Oboist, MET Orchestra
Thank you for your bravery! I wish that more of his victims would come forward. He was the most overrated conductor of my lifetime!
A really brave and brilliant piece. Thank you for your candidness.
One further systemic issue I would want to address is this idea of where funds “wasted” on Levine could have gone. I think it is a fact that they “could” have gone to young artists, to scholarships, to instruments for children, for community support. And that the astronomical number of $40 Million is incomprehensible.
But the industry as a whole fails to truly prioritize the equitable ways that money could be invested. Look at the refusal of the Met right now to pay musicians, to prioritize their well-being, as they claim that they would not survive if they did so. It’s another excuse, in the same line of excuses, to keep power and control.
I do miss teaching terribly, but my experience of departmental politics in academia was like a masterclass in pettiness and evil
Hi Susan. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience from within the orchestra.
Everything that Ken said is true. After his very first rehearsal with the BSO, which was Mahler 8, I walked off stage, looked at one of my colleagues, and said, “This is going to be a disaster.” And it just got worse until he got fired. Also as an aside, his brother Tom was banned from Tanglewood because he kept trying to hit on the students… I guess it runs in the family.
Epic takedown!
I shake my fist at an ecosystem that simply looked the other way for decades while a dude victimized kids while I also shrug my shoulders at Levine’s entire recorded legacy save the Philly Mahler 5 and the Vienna Brahms cycle.
Rest in whatever, Jim.
Perfectly said. Thanks for speaking truth.
Ken, your post nails it, especially in spirit, that he was a deeply flawed man who happened to be musically gifted. Your Tonmeister friend’s account from Verbier reminds me that when I was observing some rehearsals at the Met in the early 2000s, a friend singing with the company told me at intermission “You didn’t know? Jimmy doesn’t talk to ANY of the singers directly – it is always through an intermediary, like a manager or one or two musical assistants.”
I have a qualm, though, and I hope I won’t be misunderstood. While I believe the men who came forward in the NYT articles, and I believe friends and teachers who told me of wild and freaky behavior in Cleveland in the 70s, I wonder about this statement here:
“By the time Levine got that job, “stories about James Levine” had been universally known about in the music business for more than 20 years. There were entire countries where he was not allowed to travel, and others where he could not be in a room with minors under any circumstances (including a children’s choir in a concert hall)..”
Are you saying that you have verification of these stories, or that you take them to be true, or as others have admonished me, it doesn’t matter because he did commit other types of sexual misbehavior and they are all the same”?
I ask because I was a conductor who knew a lot of people, of varying insider privilege, who passed around stories like this in the 1990s. It has always bothered me that the stories got weirder and morphed, like urban legends, as they made the rounds. And people would always say “Well I KNOW it is true, my friend works at (the Met) (Verbier)(Deutsche Grammophon) (etc)”.
It has always concerned me because it became hard to believe ANY stories of his supposed impropriety (or illegality) as long as the rumors seemed as far-fetched and lurid as they sounded to me. I quickly add that I do not wish to help get Jimmy off the hook for anything, but I bring this up because “Stoires about Levine” has always seemed to mean “Whatever you think you might have heard, it’s worse”… and that doesn’t help us get to the truth at all.
Thank you. A great, heartfelt, honest piece of writing.
Thank you!
When Jean Morel, his teacher, was ill and in need of 24-hour nursing help, all his students and other musicians contributed to a fund to support Morel. At that time JL was already the Met’s music director. I called JL twice to ask for a contribution to the fund. He never gave a penny.