Alan Moss <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>The only James Levine rehearsal I've attended so far was quite
>disgraceful....The maestro, needless to say, received a huge ovation.

The situation here has been comparable.  But that may be about to change
now that Levine has decided to forsake Munich for Boston.  When that piece
of news transpired, it brougt in its train a, well, strained silence.  A
couple of days ago it was finally broken when the Sueddeutsche Zeitung's
Reinhard Brembeck, a very authoritative reviewer, wrote a think piece
opining that Levine, though "a genuine opera conductor" hadn't worked out
to entire satisfaction in the symphonic field.  Levine's reputation was
solidly invested in his longtime principal activity as the musical boss at
the Met.  Understandably, he never committed himself fully to the interests
of his Munich orchestra.  Besides, Brembeck went on to note, the day of the
expensive star conductor seemed to be waning.  The Radio Orchestra that had
originally started the $$$$$$$ race by hiring on Maazel-- which then caused
the opera to hire on Mehta and the Philharmonic to spend two million marks
a year on Levine-- had engaged in an excess that may now have been
punctuated by Maazel's replacement with the more workmanlike (and
considerably cheaper) Maris Jansons.  Brembeck speculated that there would
be a comparable changeover for the Philharmoniker after Levine bows out in
2004.

Denis Fodor