BAD CONDUCT
Met Opera legend molested me for years, victim claims
A man from Illinois has come forward to tell police that renowned Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine, who he first met as a 4-year-old, began molesting him as a teenager in a pattern of behavior that lasted for years and left him on the brink of suicide. When told of the alleged abuse last year, the Met allowed Levine to continue to wield the baton.
Legendary Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine molested an Illinois teenager from the time the young man was 15 years old — sexual abuse that lasted for years and led the alleged victim to the brink of suicide, according to a police report obtained by The Post.
The alleged abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago, a post the wild-haired maestro held for two decades.
The alleged victim came forward to the Lake Forest, Ill., Police Department in October 2016 to detail the alleged molestation, including claims that Levine would masturbate in front of him and kiss his penis, the report says.
The accuser informed a former Met Opera board member of the alleged abuse in 2016, and she alerted the Met’s general manager, yet Levine continued to wield his baton.
The now-74-year-old maestro, who spent 40 years as music director of the Met Opera and is currently director emeritus, conducted a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” at Lincoln Center on Saturday.
The accuser’s 2016 claims came nine years after the statute of limitations on a possible child-sex crime in Illinois had expired. The age of consent in that state is 17.
Lake Forest police investigated the allegations anyway and turned their findings over to the Lake County State’s Attorney. A State’s Attorney spokeswoman told The Post on Friday that the case is still under review and no charges have been brought.
“I began seeing a 41-year-old man when I was 15, without really understanding I was really ‘seeing’ him,” the accuser, now 48, said in a written statement to the Police Department. “It nearly destroyed my family and almost led me to suicide. I felt alone and afraid. He was trying to seduce me. I couldn’t see this. Now I can.”
The accuser, whose name is being withheld by The Post, said Levine showered him with $50,000 in cash over the years.
In a statement to The New York Times, Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, said officials had already been aware of the allegations and will launch an investigation into Levine.
“This first came to the Met’s at- tention when the Illinois police investigation was opened in October of 2016,” Gelb said. “At the time Jim said that the charges were completely false, and we didn’t hear anything further from the police. We need to determine if these charges are true and, if they are, take appropriate action. We will now be conducting our own investigation with outside resources.”
Rumors about improper sexual contact have long swirled around Levine, who closely guards his private life. The pianist and musical prodigy made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971 at age 28 and within months became its main conductor.
Levine rose to music director at the Met in 1976 and held the title until April 2016. The Met paid him $1.8 million in 2015, according to its latest available tax filings.
He is considered a giant of the classical-music world, nominated for 37 Grammys and winning 10. He was honored by the Kennedy Center in 2002, alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Simon, James Earl Jones and Chita Rivera. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Disney’s “Fantasia 2000” movie.
Throughout his long and distinguished career, Levine held posts — and picked up paychecks — with other orchestras, including as music director of the Boston Symphony. That company paid Levine $1.2 million in 2010, his last year there.
The maestro made a splash in 1971 as a last-minute guest conductor with the Chicago Symphony at its summer home, the Ravinia Festival in the city’s ritzy North Shore suburbs. The festival appointed him music director in 1973, a post he held for 21 years.
Earlier this year, Ravinia bestowed a new title on Levine — conductor laureate — and he is expected to lead concerts and hold master classes during two-week summer residencies through 2022.
It was at one such Ravinia concert in 1973 when the accuser, then a 4year-old boy living in a nearby suburb, was taken backstage by his parents to meet the great maestro.
The boy would see the conductor in subsequent summer visits to the festival and, according to the police account he gave as an adult, Levine “took an interest” in him, sending conductor’s batons and other gifts to his home.
The accuser said he did not see Levine for several years starting at age 10 and met him again at 14, when