James Levine turns 72 this year. Even though his health has improved considerably in the past year and he may continue to conduct for a decade or more, it seems inevitable that he will step down as the Met’s Music Director sometime in the next few years to assume the role of Conductor Laureate. This is why the role of Principal Conductor is so critical to the company; the person in that role serves as the unofficial successor to Maestro Levine. Read more »
Whenever opera-lovers are canvassed about what neglected operas they hunger to see revived, the resulting lists inevitably feature a goodly number of grand operas, those once wildly popular monstrosities–particularly by Meyerbeer–written primarily for Paris in the mid-19th century. Yet despite the enthusiasm of their advocates, these works have had a hard time regaining a place in the repertoire in the 21st century. Although a recent revival of Auber’s La Muette de Portici was well received at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Covent Garden’s splashy new Robert le Diable by Meyerbeer flopped and the Met has never revived its 2003 production of Halévy’s La Juive. Read more »