James Levine, former Met Opera maestro, is dead at 77

James Levine, the guiding maestro of the Metropolitan Opera for more than 40 years and one of the world’s most influential and admired conductors until allegations of sexual abuse and harassment ended his career, died March 9 in Palm Springs.

He was 77.

His death was confirmed Wednesday morning by Dr. Len Horovitz, his physician. The cause was not immediately released, nor was it clear why the death had not been announced earlier.

After investigating accounts of sexual improprieties by Levine with younger men stretching over decades, the Met first suspended and then fired him in 2018, a precipitous fall from grace at the age of 74. Levine fought back with a defamation lawsuit.

Before the scandal emerged, Levine was a widely beloved maestro who helped define the Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, expanding its repertory and burnishing its world-class orchestra. And his work extended well beyond that company. For seven years, starting in 2004, he was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, earning high praise during his initial seasons for revitalizing that esteemed ensemble, championing contemporary music and commissioning major works by living composers.

Levine also served as music director of the Munich Philharmonic for five years (1999-2004). He had long associations with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as music director of its Ravinia Festival for more than 20 years.

His final years as a maestro were dogged by health crises, including a cancerous growth on his kidney and surgery to repair a rotator cuff after he tripped on the stage at Symphony Hall in Boston in 2006. The problems forced Levine to miss weeks, even months, of performances. In March 2011, facing reality, he resigned the Boston post.

Despite the stark break with the Met Opera, it is at that institution where Levine’s musical legacy will be mainly defined. He had a 47-year association with the house and served in various positions of artistic leadership there.

From the beginning, Levine’s association with the Met seemed an ideal match of musician, art form and institution. A few weeks before turning 29, he made his debut in Puccini’s “Tosca” on June 5, 1971, a matinee for which he had had no stage rehearsals.

In 1973, Levine was named the company’s principal conductor, the first person to hold that post. The next year, with the departure of Rafael Kubelik, who had a brief and uneasy tenure as music director, Levine took over that title and settled in for what turned out to be 2,552 performances, far more than any other conductor in its history, as well as the creation of an extensive catalog of recordings and videos, including some landmark Met productions.

His movements were nimble but never attentiongrabbing. He encouraged orchestra players to watch his face, which beamed with pleasure when things were going right and signaled an alert when called for. “Give me some eyes” was his frequent request.

By the late 1980s, the Met Orchestra was considered among the top opera house ensembles in the world. That was not enough for Levine. He instituted a regular series of orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall and transformed what had been periodic chamber music programs with Met musicians into the popular Met

Chamber Ensemble.

A proficient and elegant pianist, he forged close musical ties with the Met players by performing chamber works with them. In time, many critics came to consider the Met Orchestra on a par with the leading symphonic ensembles of the world.

Rumors of Levine’s alleged sexual misconduct with younger men had trailed him for decades. Although periodically news organizations had looked into the story, nothing concrete turned up until December 2017. Amid the tide of allegations against powerful men in what came to be called the #MeToo movement, four men went public with accusations that Levine had sexually abused them. The acts were alleged to have taken place as far back as 1968 and began, the accusers each maintained, when they were teenagers.

The Met hired an outside law firm to investigate and suspended Levine pending the results. In March 2018, after the investigation found what the Met called credible evidence that Levine had engaged in “sexually abusive and harassing conduct,” the company fired him.

Days later, Levine sued the Met for breach of contract and defamation.