James Levine

James Levine

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Since his June 5, 1971 debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Tosca, Music Director James Levine has developed a relationship with that company that is unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. He conducted the first-ever Met performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Schoenberg's Erwartung and Moses und Aron, Berg's Lulu, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the world premieres of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby; all told, he has led nearly 2500 performances of 85 different operas there. This season at the Met, he leads 33 performances of four works, including revivals of Tristan und Isolde and Manon Lescaut and new productions of Lucia di Lammermoor (his 28th Opening Night) and Macbeth.
Maestro Levine inaugurated the "Metropolitan Opera Presents" television series for PBS in 1977, founded the Met’s Young Artist Development Program in 1980, returned Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen to the repertoire in 1989 (in the first integral cycles in 50 years there), and reinstated recitals and concerts with Met artists at the opera house -- a former Metropolitan tradition. Expanding on that tradition, he and the MET Orchestra began touring in concert in 1991, and since then have performed around the world including at Expo '92 in Seville, in Japan, on tours across the United States and Europe, and each year during and after the opera season on its own subscription series at Carnegie Hall; this season his concerts there are in February and May and feature soprano Deborah Voigt, pianists Alfred Brendel and Jonathan Biss, and music of Berg, Webern, Richard Strauss, Mozart, Elliott Carter, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Since 1998, Maestro Levine and the MET Chamber Ensemble have performed three concerts annually at Carnegie's Weill and Zankel halls; this season’s Chamber Ensemble performances take place on October 28 with soloists Susan Narucki, Sasha Cooke and Judith Bettina, January 27 with Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham and Anja Silja, and March 30 featuring the New York premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards (2005). In addition, he leads a special concert with the Juilliard Orchestra at Lincoln Center in February, to close Juilliard’s 100th-birthday tribute to Elliott Carter with the New York premiere of his Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993-96); that program also includes Carter’s Cello Concerto, with the winner of Juilliard’s concerto competition, and Ives’s pathbreaking Three Places in New England.
James Levine's fourth season as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra opens with an all-Ravel program (soloists Susan Graham and Jean-Yves Thibaudet) on October 4; following on last summer’s extended Tanglewood season and a two-week European tour earlier this month, he will lead a dozen programs in Boston in 2007-08 (and three at Carnegie, as well), including world premieres of a new horn concerto by Carter and symphonies by John Harbison and William Bolcom, the Boston and New York premieres of Henri Dutilleux’s Le Temps l’horloge with Renée Fleming, and season-ending performances of Berlioz’s Les Troyens. His Boston season also includes a Sunday afternoon performance of Schubert’s “Winterreise” with bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff in February.
In addition to his responsibilities at the Met and the BSO, Mr. Levine is a distinguished pianist and an active and avid recital collaborator, especially in Lieder and song repertoire. He began accompanying such artists as Jennie Tourel, Hans Hotter and Eleanor Steber more than forty years ago, and since that time has given recitals with most of the great singers of our time. From 1973 to 1993, James Levine was Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, summer home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where in a dozen programs each season he led an immense repertoire of symphonic masterpieces, operas, major works for chorus and orchestra, works for unusual combinations of instruments, one-composer marathons, oratorios, concerti, and performed as piano soloist in concerti, chamber music and song recitals. Outside the United States, his activities have been characterized by his intensive and enduring relationships with Europe's most distinguished musical organizations: the Salzburg (1975-1993) and Bayreuth (1982-1998) festivals, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic. He was Chief Conductor from 1999-2004 of the Munich Philharmonic and has conducted every major orchestra in America and Europe.
James Levine was the first recipient, in 1980, of the annual Manhattan Cultural Award and was presented with the Smetana Medal by the Czechoslovak government in 1986, following performances of the Czech composer’s Má vlast in Vienna. He was the subject of a Time cover story in 1983, was named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America in 1984, and has been featured in a documentary in PBS' "American Masters" series. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York and The Juilliard School, and has lectured at Harvard and Yale Universities, Sarah Lawrence College and Juilliard. Maestro Levine is the recipient in recent years of the Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts from New York's Third Street Music School Settlement; the Gold Medal for Service to Humanity from the National Institute of Social Sciences; the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists; the Anton Seidl Award from the Wagner Society of New York; the Goldenes Ehrenzeichen from the cities of Vienna and Salzburg; the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; the Centennial Medal from The Juilliard School; the 2005 Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the 2006 Opera News Award; and the National Medal of Arts (1997) and Kennedy Center Honors (2003).