Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2011

James Levine

For famed conductor James Levine, the wear and tear of 40 years of wielding the baton has taken its toll. In March, Levine announced he would resign in September as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a post he had held since 2004. During his tenure, Levine was plagued by a litany of health problems — including sciatica and a hand tremor — that forced him to miss about one-fifth of his scheduled performances. In September, following an accidental fall while he was vacationing in Vermont, Levine cancelled the rest of his fall 2011 appearances with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, handing over the role of principal conductor to Fabio Luisi.

Arguably the best living opera conductor, Levine, 68, has been The Met’s music director since 1976. The grandson of a cantor and the son of a violinist from Cincinnati, Levine apprenticed with George Szell at the Cleveland Orchestra in 1964. Levine has conducted about 2,500 performances at the Met since 1971, and in 1997 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Luisi seems poised to take over as music director should Levine resign — but it is perhaps too soon to declare the end of the storied Levine era. As The New York Times’s Daniel J. Wakin wrote, “…[A]ny public talk of succession is taboo. It is like the palace of an aging monarch, where courtiers shuffle and whisper behind velvet curtains.” Levine, a devotee of Richard Wagner’s music, hopes to return to conduct The Met’s spring 2012 productions of the “Ring” cycle.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.