Conductor Levine, ousted after sex abuse inquiry, sues Met
NEW YORK » Conductor James Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday after a sexual misconduct investigation sank his storied career, saying the renowned company exploited baseless allegations to tarnish him and then fired him without so much as a phone call.
“Cynically hijacking the good will of the #MeToo movement,” the Met and its general manager, Peter Gelb, “brazenly seized on these allegations as a pretext to end a longstanding personal campaign to force Levine out of the Met,” said Levine’s suit, filed in a Manhattan state court.
But a lawyer for the Met said Levine wasn’t the victim of a vendetta but a man fired because of “credible and corroborated evidence of sexual misconduct.”
“It is shocking that Mr. Levine has refused to accept responsibility for his actions and has today instead decided to lash out at the Met with a suit riddled with untruths,” attorney Bettina (Betsy) Plevan said in a statement.
The suit accuses the Met and Gelb of defamation and breach of contract. It seeks at least $5.8 million in damages — and “to restore Levine’s name, reputation and career.”
Unleashed three days after his ouster, the suit represents Levine’s most extensive public effort to date to combat allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that go back decades.
Levine’s suit says one of his accusers sent him friendly letters for decades after their alleged encounter that never accused him of wrongdoing, and even talked of visiting. The suit says the Met wouldn’t tell Levine who some accusers were but acknowledged no one who worked at the opera company made a complaint about him during his 46 years there.
The opera company suspended Levine and began an investigation in December, after the New York Post and The New York Times aired allegations of sexual misconduct from three men who said it took place decades ago when they were teenage music students or aspiring conductors. A fourth man later came forward to say Levine had sexually abused him when he was a 20-yearold music student.
Levine, 74, has called the claims unfounded.
“I have not lived my life as an oppressor or an aggressor,” he said in a December statement. “My fervent hope is that in time, people will come to understand the truth.”
He hasn’t been charged with any crime. Prosecutors in Lake County, Illinois, said in December they had investigated a 1980s sexual abuse allegation but concluded that they could not bring charges, citing factors including the age of consent — 16 — at the time.