Levine to Stay at Met Until at Least 2013

02/13/2006 7:10 PM, AP
Ronald Blum

James Levine has agreed to stay at the Metropolitan Opera until at least 2013, and incoming general manager Peter Gelb has given the conductor a lifetime invitation to remain on one of the world's premier podiums.

Levine, whose current contract as music director runs through the 2010-11 season, said Monday he will stay at least two additional seasons for a new staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle, which will be the centerpiece of the Met's 2013 celebration marking the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth.

Before the company's first news conference in 8 1/2 years, Gelb also said the Met hopes to have Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth make her Met debut in the 2008-9 revival of John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles."

Gelb, who takes over as general manager from Joseph Volpe on Aug. 1, outlined his vision for the company, which will offer six new productions next season for the first time since 1990-91.

He doesn't think Andrea Bocelli, who has a wide following but has been disparaged by opera fans, has a place at the Met. He also said he doesn't have plans to bring in some of the European directors who have provoked the most controversy, such as Hans Neuenfels, Calixto Bieito and Phyllida Lloyd.

The Met's new Ring Cycle is to be staged by Robert Lepage, who supervised Cirque du Soleil's $30 million production of "KA" in Las Vegas last year.

At the news conference, the Met's first since September 1997, Gelb paid tribute to Levine, who joined the company in 1971, became principal conductor in 1973, music director in 1976 and artistic director in 1986. His title was downgraded to music director for the 2004-5 season, when he also became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

"I've told Jim that our commitment to him is for as long as he was alive, which I hope is a long time," said Gelb, who becomes Levine's eighth boss at the Met. "We want Jimmy to conduct as much as he is able and willing to do so here. I think the Met is the luckiest opera house in the world to have him as its music director and I hope that he will be at the center of its artistic life for the foreseeable future. It would be a terrible blow for me and my plans if he was not here."

Levine, 62, embraced Gelb's plan to bring new directors and technology to the Met.

"My 40th year will be '10-11 and we will have another two years to go to complete the new Ring, and I committed to Peter that I would stay that long in any case," Levine told The Associated Press.

Levine said that, beyond that, he'll "consider whenever it's the right time" to leave.

The Met plans to revive Otto Schenk's traditional Ring staging in 2008-9, then present complete cycles of its new Ring for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. Gelb hopes Bryn Terfel can be signed on for the new Ring as Wotan and Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde, a role she was to start singing in 2009 at the Vienna State Opera and the Met but decided to postpone.

"My hope is that by the time this new Ring comes along, she will be ready to sing it," Gelb said.

He would like Chenoweth, who starred as the good witch in "Wicked," to sing Samira opposite Angela Gheorghiu's Marie Antoinette in "The Ghosts of Versailles."

"She will be terrific in that role, we believe, and she will bring in her fans," Gelb said. "But should she be singing `Traviata?' No."

Chenoweth spokeswoman Jill Fritzo said discussion of a "Ghosts" appearance "is very premature."

Gelb said bringing Bocelli to the Met would be too much of a stretch. The blind tenor made his U.S. opera debut in 1999 at Detroit's Michigan Opera Theater in the title role in Massenet's "Werther." Gelb embraced crossover projects while he was president of Sony Classical from 1995 to 2004, leading some to think he would invite Bocelli to the Met.

"It's touchy for opera people," Gelb said. "It's also touchy because of where I'm coming from. It's the favorite subject of everyone to say: `When will I cast Charlotte Church in "Traviata?" ' The answer is that it's very important to preserve the integrity of the opera experience and the opera performances here. And there's so much that can be done in terms or artistic innovation within the operatic goal posts that I don't think the Met needs to be stretching itself in ways that aren't organically and artistically right."

Gelb said the Met has commissioned Osvaldo Golijov to compose his first large-scale operatic work for the 2011-12 season, and was entering into a collaboration with Lincoln Center Theater to commission workshop performances of works that could wind up either at the Met or the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Among those to take part are Adam Guettel, Jake Heggie, Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner, Wynton Marsalis, Rufus Wainwright, Michael John LaChiusa, Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright, Scott Wheeler, and Michael Torke and Craig Lucas.

Gelb confirmed that he hopes to bring Willy Decker's Salzburg staging of Verdi's "La Traviata" to the Met with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon. He doesn't, however, want to bring in directors who have incited audiences with radical plot distortions.

"What I'm not interested in is having directors here who are anti-story tellers, and that's how I would group a lot of directors who subject audiences in Europe to unpleasant artistic experiences," Gelb said.

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