James levine conductor biography meaning

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James Levine is a world-renowned conductor whose leadership at New York City's Metropolitan Opera (Met) has ushered in a new era of artistic creativity and musical excellence. To further his knowledge in harmony and theory, Levine also studied with Walter Levin, violinist of the La Salle Quartet.

Over the next several years, he led many orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera's, and in 1975 became the company's music director.

Setting his course as a conductor, he graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and in that same year was invited by George Szell to join the Cleveland Orchestra as the youngest assistant conductor in its long history. This is the work we began in 1973." Thus Levine devoted much time to orchestra rehearsals, working resolutely on technique and details.

With the development program, the Met's management hopes to improve the chances for it and other opera theaters' long-term survival.

To accept artistic directorship of the Met, Levine cut his annual conducting schedule from 90 to 60 performances. Many of these productions were filmed for television and broadcast by PBS.

From the 1950s to the 1980s there had only been one recording project at the Metropolitan Opera, but interest was renewed in the late 1980s when performances were contracted by recording giants Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, and Sony.

"He cajoles, he compliments, he works in subtle ways. They didn't give me a sense of having to succeed, but only of making myself happy."

During the summer of 1956 Levine studied piano with revered master Rudolf Serkin at Vermont's Marlboro Music Festival; the following year he spent the summer under the guidance of acclaimed pianist Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.

"I want to make myself obsolete in the concert itself," he told Stephen Rubin, author of The New Met in Profile. "I want to be able to have the conception seem to emanate from the orchestra members who are, after all, the ones with the instruments, instead of from the crazy magician with a stick who is making all the gestures and telling the audience what they ought to be feeling and hearing.

While modestly not taking credit for the opera's accomplishments, Levine wrote in Opera News in 1990, "Those singers, conductors, directors who work in opera houses around the world concur about one thing--the work that is done at the Met is more consistently serious, thoughtful, comprehensive, imaginative, professional, stylish and exciting, with greater combined musical, dramatic and technical resources, than in any other international theater in the world."

The oldest of three children, James Lawrence Levine was born into a musical family in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 23, 1943.

He is in residence at the Metropolitan Opera during 85 percent of its season but still regularly conducts the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany. His career ended, however, in a scandal over allegations of sexual improprieties.

At the Bayreuth Festival Levine conducted productions of Parsifal and Der Ring des Nibelungen.

James Levine at Bayreuth

1982

Parsifal (conductor)

1983

Parsifal (conductor)

1984

Parsifal (conductor)

1985

Parsifal (conductor)

1988

Parsifal (conductor)

1989

Parsifal (conductor)

1990

Parsifal (conductor)

1991

Parsifal (conductor)

1992

Parsifal (conductor)

1993

Parsifal (conductor)

1994

Das Rheingold (conductor)
Die Walküre (conductor)
Siegfried (conductor)
Götterdämmerung (conductor)

A new Ring at Bayreuth, usually called the "Rosalie Ring" or the "Designer Ring".

"They turned down all offers which smacked of exploitation. Levine maintains that such a program is necessary because the style and technique that created the operatic form are no longer passed from generation to generation. While maintaining his position at the Met, Levine has continued to work as an accompanist and chamber musician and has led orchestras around the world.

because I see us as an artistic collective gathering momentum in potential and esprit.... There he studied conducting with Jean Morel and piano with Lhevinne, finishing a five-year program in just two years. He began formal piano lessons at age four and worked unflaggingly at the ivories throughout his childhood. Under Levine's leadership the Met expanded its repertoire to include new productions of several twentieth-century operas, including Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd and Death in Venice, Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, Alban Berg's Lulu, Maurice Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges, George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung, and Bela Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle. It also mounted the world premier of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, a huge hit commissioned especially for the Met.

New York City opera lovers have also seen revivals of standard works by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and Wagner, among others, and special treatment of other standards, including versions sung for the first time at the Met in their original languages, uncut renditions, and new English translations. A brilliant pianist, Levine also performs at chamber recitals with other members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and with the La Salle Quartet and mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig.

Pleased with the fruits of his efforts and those of countless others at the Metropolitan Opera who make opera come to life, Levine related in Opera News, "I'm enthusiastic ...

The conductor feels that his time away from the Met enriches him artistically, allowing him to return renewed. During this time Levine also founded, managed, and conducted a student orchestra at the Cleveland Institute of Music and in the summers taught at the Aspen Music Festival.

Levine left the Cleveland Orchestra in 1970 to guest conduct nearly every important orchestra in the United States, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cincinnati Orchestra, and the National Symphony, as well as several prominent European orchestras.