The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s two-year search to find a successor to Seiji Ozawa as music director ended without much surprise last weekend with the anticipated announcement of James Levine, who’s been the artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera for 30 years — a year longer than Ozawa has directed the BSO. This is happy news for most classical-music aficionados. Levine, with his PBS opera telecasts (including a performance of the complete Wagner Ring Cycle), his Three Tenors concerts, and his Fantasia 2000 soundtrack, has a huge international following. But he’s also an accomplished pianist and chamber musician. His concerts with the BSO have been few but choice, including superb recent performances of Mahler’s Third Symphony and Haydn’s oratorio The Creation.

One alleged sticking point, evidently resolved, was his insistence on a flexible rehearsal schedule that would allow him extra overtime for difficult pieces. "I needed to know," he said at his press conference, "that there was some comprehension that there wasn’t any way I would do it if I had to do it the way it was done before." He also talked about trying to attract a younger audience ("There must be a way to bring kids into the hall; if they don’t come, I can go to them, too"), and about his commitment to American music. Of the 14 BSO music directors, he’s the first to be born in this country (in Cincinnati), and his two major Met commissions, John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, were by American composers. He also talked about doing more opera here.

Articulate and modest (he cocked his head doubtfully when BSO trustee Peter Brooke introduced him as a "distinguished, distinguished maestro"), he’s also quite forthright: asked about his health, he reported that a tremor he’s had in his left leg and arm since 1993 "has not gotten any worse" and that his doctors told him that this job was "exactly what you should do." He seems fully prepared to begin his five-year contract in 2004, as soon as his contract with the Munich Philharmonic ends. He’ll be 61. Till then he’ll be "music director designate," involved in all artistic decisions after Ozawa leaves. "I’m very honored, very challenged, and very thrilled," he says. "I have the best motivation to bring what I can to what the orchestra needs."

Issue Date: November 1 - 8, 2001