Met Suspends Conductor James Levine After 3 Men Accuse Him Of Sexual Harassment
Image by Getty Images
By Helen Chernikoff December 4, 2017
Another powerful man in an iconic position at the top of his field has lost his job after being accused of sexual harassment, with one small difference — this time, the people making the allegations are also men.
The Metropolitan Opera suspended its beloved conductor James Levine, 74, on Sunday, reported the New York Times, after three men made public accounts that he had sexually abused them when they were teenagers. The accusations go back to 1968, when according to Chris Brown, a bass player in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Levine molested him at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan. Brown was 17 at the time; Levine was 25.
Met general manager Peter Gelb announced that the company was suspending its relationship with Levine, canceled his pending engagements and asked an outside law firm to investigate.
Accusations of sexual harassment between people of the same gender have been relatively rare in the flood unleashed by the New York Times’ reporting on movie maker Harvey Weinstein in October. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s running list is current up to December 1.
Contact Helen Chernikoff at [email protected] or on Twitter @thesimplechild
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
