James Levine, who ruled over Met Opera, dies

NEW YORK » Conductor James Levine, who ruled over the Metropolitan Opera for more than four decades before being eased aside when his health declined and then was fired for sexual improprieties, has died. He was 77.

Levine died March 9 in Palm Springs, California, of natural causes, his physician of 17 years, Dr. Len Horovitz, said Wednesday.

Levine made his Met debut in 1971 and became one of the signature artists in the company’s century-plus history, conducting 2,552 performances and ruling over its repertoire, orchestra and singers as music or artistic director from 1976 until forced out by general manager Peter Gelb in 2016 due to Parkinson’s disease.

Levine became music director emeritus and remained head of its young artists program but was suspended on Dec. 3, 2017, the day after conducting a Verdi “Requiem” in what turned out to be his final performance, after accounts in the New York Post and The New York Times of sexual misconduct dating to the 1960s.

He was fired the following March 12 and never conducted again. He had been scheduled to make comeback performances of Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” this Jan. 17 and 21 in Florence, Italy, but the concerts were canceled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“No artist in the 137 year history of the Met had as profound an impact as James Levine,” Gelb said in a statement. “He raised the Met’s musical standards to new and greater heights.”

Known for bushy hair an an everpresent towel draped over a shoulder during rehearsals, Levine greatly expanded the Met’s repertory and was especially praised for his performances of Wagner, Verdi and Berg. He was closely associated with Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and Birgit Nilsson, who spoke on stage at close to 2 a.m. near the end of Levine’s 25th anniversary concert, which stretched on for about eight hours at the Met in 1996.

Levine was beloved by singers for forcing orchestras to bend to their needs.

“Confidence is a tremendous part of an artist’s performance, especially singers, because a singer cannot evaluate what’s happening,” he told The Associated Press in 1996. “It’s in her body. It’s not out here where the piano keys are, or where the cello is. To me, singers are heroic in that respect.”

He became on dominant figure in the media age, making hundreds of audio and video recordings that have been released commercially or distributed by the Met and its media partners.