LEVINE, JAMES

LEVINE, JAMES (1943– ), U.S. conductor and pianist. Levine was born in Cincinnati and made his debut as a pianist at the age of ten with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He took piano lessons with Walter Levin and rudolf serkin . In 1961 he entered the Juilliard School of Music to study conducting with Jean Morel and the piano with Lhévinne. In 1964, he joined the music staff of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra under george szell , whose assistant conductor he became two years later. Although he conducted many symphony concerts (especially with the Cleveland Meadow Brook Orchestra, which he founded in 1967) he achieved his most notable successes as an operatic conductor with the Welsh National Opera (Aida, 1970) and with the San Francisco Opera (Madame Butterfly, 1971). After his highly successful début at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1971 in Tosca, he was appointed principal conductor of the Metropolitan (1973–74), its music director (1975), and its artistic director (1986). There he led 2,000 performances of 75 different operas and conducted the house premieres of Mozart's Idomeneo; Lulu, Erwartung, Mahagonny, Moses und Aron, and Oedipus Rex; Corigliano's The Ghost of Versailles (1991); glass ' The Voyage (1992); and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby (1999). Levine was the director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1973–78) and the Ravinia Festival (1973–93). He conducted at Bayreuth Göz Friedrich's centennial production of Parsifal (1982–85, 1988), Wolfgang Wagner's Parsifal (1989–93), and the Kirchner/Rosalie Ring (1994–97). Levine recorded with many orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (including the complete cycle of Mozart symphonies), Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. With the latter he recorded major symphonic works. As an accomplished pianist, his recorded chamber music includes Schubert's "Trout" Quintet and Schumann's Piano Quintet. His many honors include the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians"), the Anton Seidl Award from the Wagner Society of New York, and the National Medal of Arts endowed to him by President Clinton at the White House. -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grove online; P.J. Smith, A Year at the Met (1983); J. Levine with R.C. Marsh, Dialogues and Discoveries (1997). (Max Loppert / Israela Stein (2nd ed.)