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Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine, right, conducting the symphony on its opening night performance at Tanglewood in Lenox., Mass. The Metropolitan Opera said, Thursday, April 14, 2016, that Levine will retire as music director at season's end. Photo Credit: AP
James Levine will retire as the Metropolitan Opera's music
director at the end of this season because of Parkinson's disease, ending a
40-year run that lifted the company to a golden era but became increasingly
problematic as his health declined.
Met general manager Peter Gelb said Thursday that Levine, who
turns 73 in June, will become music director emeritus and a successor as music
director will be appointed in "a couple months." While Levine intends
to conduct in future seasons and will remain head of the company's young artist
development program, the Met said his health has made it difficult for him to
retain a full schedule.
"It had to be done. Jim recognizes that he needs to move on
to a new chapter in his career," Gelb said during an interview. "The
tragedy for him is that his musical mind and ideas are as great as ever.
Physically he's not able to relay the information because of his
Parkinson's."
Levine made his Met debut in June 1971 in Puccini's
"Tosca" and eight months later was hired as principal conductor
starting with the 1973-74 season. In May 1975, the company said he would become
music director in 1976-77, and his title was upgraded to artistic director in
1986, a position he held until it reverted to music director in 2004, when he
also became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
He has led 2,551 performances of more than 85 operas with the
Met, by far the most by a conductor in the company's history. His tenure with a
single orchestra is a rarity in a business where frequent podium shifts are
commonplace. He instituted regular symphonic concerts with the orchestra in
1991 and a chamber ensemble in 1998.
"I am tremendously proud of all we have been able to
achieve together as a company, from expanding the repertory to include new and
seldom-heard works, to the development of the orchestra and chorus into one of
the glories of the musical world," Levine said in a statement.
"Although I am unable to spend as much time on the podium as I would like,
I am pleased to step into my new role and maintain my profound artistic ties to
the Met."
The favorites to succeed Levine appear to be Yannick
Nezet-Seguin, a 41-year-old Canadian who is music director of the Philadelphia
Orchestra, and Gianandrea Noseda, a 51-year Italian who is music director of
the Teatro Regio in Turin. Because conductors are booked years in advance, Gelb
said "there cannot be a seamless transition."
Levine led upward of 110 performances in a season in the 1980s,
including tours. His successor likely would not conduct one-third that total.
"That was a superhuman effort that has never been attempted
or equaled," Gelb said. "There's no conductor who's going to give
that kind of time commitment to any organization."
While Levine upgraded the quality of the orchestra to the
highest level since the company began in 1883, his health has been an issue for
more than a decade and his baton and cues became harder to follow this season.
Levine has conducted from a chair since late 2001, and when
tremors in his left arm and leg became noticeable in 2004, he said they began a
decade earlier. His health worsened in 2006, when he tripped and fell on the
stage of Boston's Symphony Hall during ovations that followed a performance and
he tore a rotator cuff, which required shoulder surgery.
He had an operation in 2008 to remove a kidney and another in
2009 to repair a herniated disk in his back. He then suffered spinal stenosis,
leading to surgeries in May and July 2011. He had another operation that
September after falling and damaging a vertebra, an injury that sidelined him
until May 2013. He relinquished his BSO position in 2011.
Gelb said the Met came close to announcing Levine's retirement
earlier this winter but held off, waiting to see if a change in medication
would improve Levine's health. While there was improvement, Gelb said there was
not enough.
Levine is scheduled to conduct his remaining Met performances
this season of Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" and "Die Entfuehrung
aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)." He is withdrawing from
next year's new staging of Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier" but remains
slated for revivals of Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl
in Algiers)," Verdi's "Nabucco" and Mozart's
"Idomeneo."
Levine will be scheduled in the future one season ahead of
performances. He hopes to conduct for many years.
"If it was up to him," Gelb said, "he would die
on the podium."
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/james-levine-to-retire-as-metropolitan-opera-s-music-director-due-to-parkinson-s-disease-1.11695895
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Friday, April 15, 2016
James Levine to retire as Metropolitan Opera's music director due to Parkinson's disease
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