James Levine, Former Met Opera Music Director, Is Dead At Age 77 by Tom Huizenga James Levine conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Miguel Medina / AFP via Getty Images
James Levine, the immensely accomplished conductor who wielded power and influence in the classical world, and whose singular tenure at the Metropolitan Opera ended in a flurry of accusations of sexual abuse, died on March 9 in Palm Springs, Calif. His physician of 17 years, Dr. Len Horovitz, confirmed his death to NPR, saying that Levine died of natural causes. He was 77 years old.
Over four and a half decades, Levine shaped the sound and reputation of New York s storied Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts organization in the country, through his conducting, coaching of singers and choristers and fine-tuning the pit musicians into one of the world s great orchestras. Levine led more than 2,500 performances at the opera house, beginning in 1971, when he made his deb
Courtesy of Rachel Marie-Crane Williams/Verso
A March 7 story about the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer whose May 2020 killing of George Floyd ignited a nationwide racial reckoning, shows why Rachel Marie-Crane Williams new book is so essential right now.
Despite video footage that shocked the world, the Associated Press reports, legal experts say the case isn t a slam dunk. That s not news. Not after Ahmaud Arbery, Pamela Turner, Stephon Clark, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant and all the other African-Americans whose killings have been captured on video, a sickening chronicle spanning decades. Some acts, we ve learned, trigger an immediate, agonized reaction in anyone who witnesses them and yet when those acts are described in a courtroom, something crucial always gets lost. Mere words, especially the kinds of words our legal system relies on to deliver verdicts, literally can t do justice to the case.