Another hits maestro conduct
A FOURTH MAN accused Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine of sexual abuse on Monday, a day after the opera house suspended the maestro and launched an investigation, according to a report.
Albin Ifsich told The New York Times that Levine began abusing him in 1968, when he was a 20-year-old student at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan.
Levine (photo) told the student he had to “understand” him sexually to help him play the violin, and masturbated in front of him, according to the report.
The abuse continued for several years, Ifsich said.
The Met suspended Levine on Sunday and hired Robert Cleary, the former U.S. attorney who led the Unabomber prosecution, to investigate the music hall. In a statement, the opera house said the allegations against Levine date to the 1960s and continued until the 1980s. Levine became the Met’s music director in 1976, and was appointed musical director emeritus in 2016.
So far, the conductor has been accused by three men, including Ashok Pai, 48, who told the Daily News that Levine “basically sexually assaulted me hundreds of times.”