James Levine Sidelined for Tanglewood Summer 2010
Written by
Clarence Fanto
Serious questions raised about the maestro's future with the Boston Symphony
By Clarence Fanto
(BOSTON, Mass.) — The Boston Symphony Orchestra has revamped its Tanglewood summer-season schedule as Music Director James Levine has had to cancel his full schedule of 13 public appearances. He continues recuperating from a complex, 10 hour-plus operation in April for back and neck problems to correct problems stemming from his previous surgery last fall.
Michael Tilson Thomas, who returned to the orchestra last summer after a long hiatus, will pick up some of Levine's highest-profile concerts, including the opening-night gala on Friday, July 9, featuring Mahler's Symphony No. 2, the "Resurrection," with vocal soloists and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra."It's clear he's convalescing well, and he tends to heal quickly," BSO Managing Director Mark Volpe told Berkshire Living during an interview at his Symphony Hall office in Boston. "Although he's incredibly alert, he's still recovering." Volpe said he, Levine and a team of physicians concluded that the "prudent, cautious course would be to take the summer off and focus on regaining his strength and stamina."
Still on Levine's schedule is an ambitious new production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle, opening at the Metropolitan Opera in September, and opening night at the Boston Symphony on Oct. 2, followed by 21 more scheduled BSO performances over eight weeks spread through the fall-winter season — a lighter work load than in previous seasons.
In a prepared statement released by the BSO on Monday, Levine said: “It is with great personal disappointment that I must withdraw from the upcoming Tanglewood season, and my work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center. My doctors have told me I have made great progress—even beyond their expectations — but have advised me to err on the side of caution and take the summer off to recuperate more fully from the two back surgeries of this past year. The most important thing is to not risk any delay in my recovery so I can return to good health and my conducting duties at the BSO and the Met this fall without further interruptions."
Levine has no signed contract with the orchestra currently but works on by verbal agreement with his management. He earned $1.7 million from the BSO, according to the organization's most-recent tax filing, but less than 25 percent of that is for his administrative responsibilities. The rest is for concert fees, which he does not earn if he does not conduct. His Metropolitan Opera salary, where he is under signed contract, is nearly $2 million a year.
Volpe said Levine may show up to do some coaching with the advanced students of the Tanglewood Music Center, but his performances with the BSO and the TMC Orchestra are not possible. "We felt a premature return to the podium was not in anybody's interest," Volpe emphasized, especially since it might jeopardize his early-autumn commitments at the BSO and the Met.
"I am incredibly grateful for the tremendous support and understanding I’ve received from my colleagues and friends throughout the music world, all of which is helping me more than I can say in getting through this most challenging time," Levine stated. "Though I will miss being with you all, I wish my BSO and Tanglewood colleagues a successful summer season.”
Tilson Thomas gave up a scheduled three-week vacation to lead three of Levine's major Shed performances; beyond opening night, he'll conduct the TMC Orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No. 3 and a BSO program of Mozart's Requiem and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.
"He had a wonderful time here last summer," Volpe said of Tilson Thomas's reunion with the orchestra he had led frequently as assistant conductor from 1969-1974 before assuming leadership of the Buffalo Philharmonic and the London Symphony. "The audience was absolutely engaged." Volpe called him "incredibly generous" for stepping in this summer.
In addition to the three Shed concerts, the music director of the San Francisco and Florida's New World Symphony (a student orchestra) will be involved in an additional TMC Orchestra concert as conductor and coach. He scored a major coup last summer with his Ozawa Hall multimedia performances of "The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Musical Theatre." The acclaimed project, which toured the nation, was a tribute to Thomas's grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky.
Another major TMC project this summer, a fully-staged performance of Richard Strauss's luminous opera, "Ariadne auf Naxos," will be prepared and conducted by the highly regarded former Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi, who has been a regular guest conductor of the BSO in recent years. He is currently music director of the Hamburg, Germany NDR Symphony and honorary conductor for life of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. He remains on the Tanglewood schedule for two BSO concerts.
Other conductors filling in for Levine include Hans Graf, who has frequently guest-conducted the BSO, for an all-Strauss program, and Johannes Debus, music director of the Canadian Opera Company, for the BSO concert performance of Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio," another Levine project. Several additional concerts, including one of Levine's and two by former BSO Music Director Seiji Ozawa, who's undergoing cancer treatment, still await substitutes.
As for Levine's cancellation — which follows a succession of health issues that sidelined him for most of the orchestra's Boston 2009-10 season (he missed 22 performances, representing 60 percent of his schedule), and much of the Tanglewood season in 2008 — Volpe said: "We're all disappointed, no one's more disappointed than Jim, and yet I think it's absolutely the right decision. What Jim ultimately understood was that we couldn't wait, wait, wait."
He spent three hours with the maestro in New York early this month after sending him a letter outlining the options for the summer. "Although he's got that intellectual energy going, I didn't have to force the issue," he explained. "We both came to the conclusion on the prudent course; the Tanglewood schedule is known as a 'Levine schedule,' no one else would touch that."
Volpe acknowledged that he and his colleagues had begun scoping out the availability of conductors back in April following Levine's surgery in case he needed the summer to complete his recuperation. He praised the magnanimity of Tilson Thomas, von Dohnányi and the other substitute conductors in giving up scheduled vacation time to spend blocks of time at Tanglewood this summer.
Asked about Levine's future relationship with the BSO in view of considerable anxiety among orchestra players and staff about the spate of cancellations and his inability to continue consistent, ongoing artistic leadership, Volpe responded: "I was encouraged to see how much progress he's made, and I think we're taking a cautious course. There's nothing certain about that. Until he's done with his recovery, it's premature to speculate. We won't know what's possible, despite his endurance and stamina, we won't know if there were limitations that no longer exist. I think it's a very fair question and I want to be as straight as I can. Until we know more, it's premature to speculate about his future with the BSO.
"I think we have to see what's possible and to see what he can do. That will kind of shape the relationship. The guy's missed a season and we hope he will be in top shape for the fall. From what he's shared and his physicians have shared, the prognosis is positive, but we're not there yet."
Volpe acknowledged that the BSO musicians and staff have found the week-to-week, day-to-day uncertainty during the past Boston season "incredibly stressful" because of last-minute changes in rehearsal schedules and repertoire. "It's been hard on all of us. To the credit of all involved, I think we've done the best we can. But do we want to continue living like this? No, it's not tenable."
Clarence Fanto is a contributing editor to Berkshire Living.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| James Levine leads the BSO in an All Mozart program at Tanglewood July 19, 2009 (Hilary Scott).preview.JPG | 10.18 KB |
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Icerocket
.preview.JPG){kind=link}