Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine – who’s headed to the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of Having the Most Jobs and Doing None of Them – is, not surprisingly, AWOL from his latest gig.
Via the New York Times:
James Levine, the music director of the Metropolitan Opera, withdrew from a performance of “Don Pasquale” at intermission Wednesday night because of a stomach virus, the Met said. Joseph Colaneri, an assistant conductor at the house, stepped in and led the final act. The Met said on Thursday that Mr. Levine, 67, was “much better” and planned to conduct the opera on Saturday, as scheduled.
Yes, well, we’ll see about that.
Campaign Outsider 
Levine has been absent for far too much of his tenure as the BSO conductor. It’s obvious that he is physically incapable of performing his duties at both the BSO and the Met to the level demanded by both orchestras, and should resign from one or the other, or have his contract bought out and replaced by someone prepared to devote full time to the job. I wonder if his attendance record at the Met during these past few years has been as spotty as here in Boston?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – James Levine is the Ramiro Mendoza of orchestral music.
For our Mendoza-impaired readers:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mendora01.shtml
Cheers.
(Or jeers.)
I attended the HD Telecast for theater viewing on Saturday, and Levine conducted the entire work. At the curtain call, he appeared using a cane as if he were 80 years old. His handlers (yes, he has handlers just like sports stars) should have seen to it that he dieted and exercised in his yute so this wouldn’t have happened. Symphony orchestra conductors as a group seem to be able to function at a high level well into old age (exception, besides Levine: Leonard Bernstein who occasionally breathed fresh air while not chanin-smoking).