In Thursday’s (4/8) New York Times, Ben Sisario writes, “As the conductor James Levine prepares to undergo lower-back surgery, his employers at the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra are nervously hoping that he will recover and resume his extremely busy schedule. … At the Met, where he has been conducting for four decades, Mr. Levine, 66, has a long-term contract, a Met spokesman confirmed. But in Boston, where he took over as music director in 2004, he is without a signed contract, as The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday. Instead, said Mark Volpe, managing director of the Boston Symphony, since Mr. Levine’s original five-year contract expired, the relationship has been covered by an unsigned service agreement between the orchestra and management company that represents him. … In Boston Mr. Levine is paid a certain amount as music director, but most of his compensation comes from performance fees as conductor, so if he misses concerts, he does not get paid as much, Mr. Volpe said.” Levine’s representative Ronald A. Wilford said he and Levine “considered the agreement with Boston—documented in e-mail messages—to be fully negotiated and binding.”
Posted April 8, 2010
