James Levine leaves Boston Symphon

先週予定されたBoston Symphony の Mahler 9th の指揮をキャンセル（Assitant Conductor が代演）したJames Levine が，これ以上Metropolitan Opera とBoston Symphony 双方のMusic Director を継続するのは困難と告げて，2004年以来のBonston Symphony を辞任しました（9月1日付け）．

Things went well at first. He reinvigorated the Boston orchestra, which had grown dispirited after three decades under Seiji Ozawa, and poured his intellectual energy into programming new and ambitious works, specializing in contemporary composers like Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen and others. Overseeing the Tanglewood Music Center, the symphony’s summer home and a training center, came with the job, and Mr. Levine jumped into it with vigor. (He is still on the schedule to be there this summer.)

For the first couple of years “it was glorious, and things artistically were incredibly satisfying,” Mr. Volpe said. He dismissed the idea that the orchestra’s playing had slipped, praising a singing quality and emphasis on upper voices brought by Mr. Levine. “The personnel of the orchestra is probably as good as it’s ever been.”  

と小澤征爾が低下させた演奏水準を超一流に復活させたのでしたが，その後，指揮台から落ちて腰を痛め，その手術を繰り返しながらやってきたのでした． 
昨年春の手術は大成功で，昨年秋のシーズン開幕からは，1日にBoston & Met Opera　の双方を指揮するという離れ業をこなしたりしていたのですが，そこいウイルス性疾患が重なって，今回の辞任に至ったのだそうです．

今後はMet Opera に専念するそうです．

これから来シーズンに向けたMusic Director 探しになりますが，James Levine の後任というのはなかなかたいへんな人選が難しいと考えられます．

 

 

Levine, Citing Health, Says He’ll Leave Boston Symphony

By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Published: March 2, 2011

James Levine, dogged by a relentless series of health problems, said on Wednesday that he would resign as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, concluding that he could no longer handle the job along with his duties in the same post at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

James Levine has missed about a fifth of his Boston Symphony concerts.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times   
James Levine leading the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall in February. He could still return as a guest conductor.

Mr. Levine, 67, plans to step down on Sept. 1, after seven seasons at the symphony, a tenure marked by artistic leaps but also by repeated cancellations and frustration among orchestra players, management and patrons over his absences.

Mr. Levine said he was just as frustrated as everybody else.

“This has been brewing in my mind for a long time,” Mr. Levine, who was in New York, said in a telephone interview. “Each time that I had to cancel because of illness, or each time that I arrived and wasn’t my best, I kept thinking we can’t keep this up. This isn’t right for the orchestra or the audience or me.”

The orchestra said it was a joint decision.

Mark Volpe, the Boston Symphony’s managing director, said that in November he and Mr. Levine began discussing an “evolving artistic role.” Mr. Volpe has not hidden his frustration in the past, once calling the concert to concert uncertainty “slow torture” and saying the situation was “not tenable” in the long-term.

Last week the lingering effects of a procedure related to Mr. Levine’s most recent surgery, compounded by a virus, forced him to cancel performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. That was a signal to both that the time had come.

“We said, ‘It’s clear to us you should be focusing on your health,’ ” Mr. Volpe recounted, adding that he told Mr. Levine that it was time to move forward with a search for his successor. “He fully understood,” Mr. Volpe said.

Mr. Volpe told the orchestra on Wednesday afternoon at rehearsal. “Frankly, no one was shocked,” he said.

A committee was being formed to find a new conductor, but it was highly unlikely anyone would be in place by next season, Mr. Volpe said.

Mr. Levine’s medical history includes sciatica, a hand tremor and weight problems. He has had a succession of operations in the last five years: repair of his rotator cuff, removal of a kidney and two back surgeries.

While he missed many Met performances, the impact seemed greater in Boston.

Orchestra music directors, as opposed to those at an opera company, generally have a greater influence on a season, shaping repertory, approving guest conductors and soloists, and overseeing new orchestra hires. At the Met, however, the conductor is one element in a huge machine that includes stage directors, production designers, star singers, a chorus and its director, and a large staff of assistant conductors, rehearsal pianists and coaches.

The work at an orchestra is also more intense: a week can be packed with rehearsals, meetings and back to back concerts. Rehearsals, preparation and performances at an opera house are more spread out over time. Mr. Levine said his health would still allow him to handle that kind of life. He also pointed out that he had been at the Met for 40 years, lived in New York and had a reliable music staff at the opera house. “I’ve been at the Met for such a long time that everything about it is comfortable to me and familiar to me, and I’m at one with it,” he said, “whereas in Boston, unless I’m 100 percent well and rested, then I can’t give them the work they deserve.”

Orchestra officials will work to replace the seven or eight weeks of programs Mr. Levine was to conduct. Both Mr. Volpe and Mr. Levine left open the possibility that Mr. Levine could return as a guest conductor.

From the outset Mr. Levine’s health drew scrutiny over concerns he would have difficulty juggling both music directorships. Things went well at first. He reinvigorated the Boston orchestra, which had grown dispirited after three decades under Seiji Ozawa, and poured his intellectual energy into programming new and ambitious works, specializing in contemporary composers like Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen and others. Overseeing the Tanglewood Music Center, the symphony’s summer home and a training center, came with the job, and Mr. Levine jumped into it with vigor. (He is still on the schedule to be there this summer.)

For the first couple of years “it was glorious, and things artistically were incredibly satisfying,” Mr. Volpe said. He dismissed the idea that the orchestra’s playing had slipped, praising a singing quality and emphasis on upper voices brought by Mr. Levine. “The personnel of the orchestra is probably as good as it’s ever been.”   

Mr. Levine acknowledged that he might have bitten off too much. “From the very beginning I didn’t handle both jobs completely smoothly,” he said. “There was always for me a tightness in the schedule between finishing a group of things here and then having to go right away to another group of things somewhere else.” As a younger, healthier man, he said, he could handle that.

Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, said Mr. Levine had not cut back on his plans at the house. He will maintain a pace of four to five productions and 30 or more scheduled performances through the 2014-15 season, the extent of the Met’s fixed plans so far.

According to statistics provided by the Met, Mr. Levine had roughly 50 scheduled Met performances in each of the first three seasons starting in September 2004, when he joined the Boston Symphony; his load fell to an average of 35 after that. Of 285 total performances scheduled, the operations, recuperations and other medical issues caused him to miss 55. The Boston Symphony said he missed about a fifth of its concerts.

Mr. Levine is next due for a Met orchestra rehearsal on March 29, and a performance of “Das Rheingold” the next day, the start of a performance-packed period. In April and May he is set to conduct another “Rheingold”; four performances of “Wozzeck”; four of “Il Trovatore”; seven of a new production of “Die Walküre”; and two Met orchestra concerts in Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Levine’s health problems sometimes seem to be scrutinized like those of a political leader or pope because he is an enormously influential figure in classical music. He plays a central role in one of the world’s leading opera houses, has the devotion of many major singers and directs one of the top orchestras around.

He has a large fan base and attracts donors. Administrators rely on his leadership to keep their institutions musically excellent. Audience members buy tickets for him, not — at least not yet — for the likes of his substitutes, including Sean Newhouse, an assistant conductor for the Boston orchestra who led Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 last weekend.

On Tuesday, before the announcement of Mr. Levine’s resignation, the Boston Symphony said he was also pulling out of all 12 remaining concerts this season, including three high-profile dates at Carnegie Hall, March 15 to 17. The orchestra said an assistant conductor, Marcelo Lehninger; Roberto Abbado; and Andris Nelsons would be substitutes at Carnegie.

Mr. Levine’s first extended absence came after a Beethoven Ninth performance in Boston almost exactly five years ago, when he tripped on the stage and landed on his right shoulder. The result: a torn rotator cuff and surgery to repair it. Until then he had been remarkably durable, missing perhaps a dozen performances out of 2,000 at the Met.

In July 2008 he had surgery to remove a kidney because of a malignant cyst. The 2009-10 season brought an operation to fix a herniated disk near his neck and a 10-hour surgery to correct curvature of the spine and compression on his spinal cord. A lingering problem with a nerve from that operation caused continuing discomfort and a procedure to fix it led to the latest round of absences, and ultimately, his departure from the Boston Symphony.