“When James Levine lifts his baton and gives the downbeat to begin Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” on Saturday night at the Metropolitan Opera, it will be his 2,500th performance with the company — a conducting record unmatched, and never even approached, in the history of the Met.
Mr. Levine, 71, the Met’s music director, has led more than twice as many performances at the Met as the company’s next busiest conductor, Artur Bodanzky, who conducted there in the early 20th century. His tally, which includes concerts with the Met orchestra at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere, exceeds the number of New York Philharmonic concerts led by its two most prolific conductors, Leonard Bernstein and Zubin Mehta, combined.
“Our relationship started off with a honeymoon that just never went off the track,” Mr. Levine said this week in a telephone interview.”
Placido Domingo introduces James Levine at the 25th Kennedy Center awards ceremony in 2002:
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