BOSTON (Reuters) -The
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) named New York Metropolitan Opera artistic director
James Levine its new music director Sunday, making him the first American to hold the post in the renowned orchestra's 120-year history.
"It was the unanimous vote of the trustees. The appointment is now official," said BSO spokeswoman Bernadette Horgan.
Levine will replace Seiji Ozawa, 66, who has led the BSO for 28 years and achieved international acclaim along the way. He will become music director of the Vienna State Opera in the fall of 2002.
Levine, 58, who recently renewed and extended his contract with the Met through the 2008 season, is expected to take up the BSO baton for the 2003-2004 season. The two maestros have taken different and occasionally overlapping paths to the podium.
Ozawa's 1999 decision to leave was based in large part on his desire to lead an opera company. Levine is credited with being the driving force behind what many believe is the Met's golden age as an opera company.
During his 30-year tenure he has developed the orchestra and chorus to an unparalleled level of achievement and excellence, according to critics.
Levine, winner of a U.S. National Medal of Art, served as director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Ravina Festival from 1973 to 1993. Ozawa, who also has many honors including being named a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, served for five years as music director at Ravina beginning in 1964. Their styles of conducting, though not their passion for music, are very different.
Ozawa's slender body conducts the orchestra. His head of blunt-cut gray hair sways to the music. He crouches low and extends an arm to urge more from the violins. And whether the baton is in his right hand or not, he appears at times to strike at notes.
Levine, a piano virtuoso born in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a more substantial man and hardly moves at all except for the steady beat of the baton.
"Where my tastes in music are concerned, I'm a real maximalist," Levine said in a November 2000 interview with The Guardian newspaper. "But where my attitude about the function of the conductor in a performance is concerned, I'm a real minimalist."
His new position with the Boston Symphony carries with it the prestige of leading the annual festival at Tanglewood, the BSO's summer home in the Berkshires.
While leading the Met, Levine continued to perform as a pianist and conduct for other orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. He has worked with some of the greatest opera singers including Jessye Norman, Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo and Frederica von Stade.
