Awful choice: Inside the ‘cult’ of conductor James Levine
THEY were young students with a chance to enter the inner circle of musical wunderkind James Levine. It came, they say, at a cost.
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IT WAS the choice that his followers saw as no choice.
Choose family, or choose the power, influence and irresistible charisma and undeniable talent of conductor James Levine. Pledge allegiance, and enter his charmed circle.
“Who,” he challenged one young violin student, “would you save?” Levine, or the violinist’s own mother?
“If you pick your mother,” the then-student violinist Albin Ifsich says the conductor told him, “you will walk out this door and never see me again.
“If you pick me, you will close the door, step into this house, and be with me forever.”
Stepping through the door, Ifsich alleges, meant becoming a victim of sexual abuse, whose life was dominated by a man who continually tested him and decreed who he would see, form relationships with, and cut off.
Fast-forward 50 years and Ifsich’s claims were among a growing number from a group of former students known as “Levinites” which would finally bring the wild-haired maestro composer down.
Ifsich’s detailed claims were first made last December, then further detailed in The Boston Globe in March this year as part of a major investigation which saw 20 students and former colleagues of Levine detail a litany of allegations of sexual abuse against the now 75-year-old Levine. Nine men in total have come forward with accusations of harassment or abuse.
The career of Levine — considered by many the greatest American conductor since Leonard Bernstein — and his reputation lie in tatters.
He continues to protest his innocence.
‘I’LL TAKE A LIE-DETECTOR TEST, WILL HE?’
Levine had already been suspended from his revered and powerful position as music director of the famed New York Met Opera (a role he held with an iron fist for 40 years) in December 2017, when Ifsich and three other men — violinist and pianist Ashok Pai, bassist and professor Chris Brown, and cellist James Lestock — first came forward to accuse him of sexual abuse.
Lestock said he was abused for years after becoming a student of Levine’s. Pai said his abuse began when he was 16.
Levine called the allegations “unfounded,” The New York Times reported.
“As understandably troubling as the accusations noted in recent press accounts are, they are unfounded,” Levine said in a written statement.
“As anyone who truly knows me will attest, I have not lived my life as an oppressor or an aggressor.”
His accusers stood firm, Lestock, now 67, saying: “He [Levine] is lying.”
“The examples of instigating sex with a minor, physical abuse using physical pain leading to break down crying, all happened.
“I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?”
In March this year, 10 days after the Globe’s damning exposé, the Met fired Levine.
Announcing the results of its own investigation, it said there was conclusive evidence for “sexually abusive and harassing conduct” by Levine.
It announced the “full termination” of its relationship with Levine, including rescinding his title of music director emeritus, and dismissing him as artistic director of its young artists program.
Three days later, Levine filed a lawsuit for at least $US5.8 million ($A7.8 million) against the Met with the New York State Supreme Court, for breach of contract and defamation.
The Met stated: “It is shocking that Mr Levine has refused to accept responsibility for his actions, and has today instead decided to lash out at the Met with a suit riddled with untruths.”
Four months on, Levine continues to deny all the allegations.
THE ‘CULT’ OF ‘LEVINITES’
The Globe’s investigation in March had exposed, its reporters said, alleged sexual misconduct that was part of a wider sphere of behaviour they likened to a cult.
Part of Levine’s career was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Globe delved into a period from 1965 to 1972, when he taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
“Devotees” known at the time as “Levinites”, the report said, entered into a circle in which they say the conductor ruled almost every aspect of the young music students’ lives.
“The young musical acolytes,” the Globe said, “... bent to the will of James Levine in all things, back when the conductor was the brightest emerging star in conducting. From the outside, it seemed a charmed circle; the reality inside was otherwise: dark, sexually charged, and often demeaning.”
Levine dictated, it was alleged, what the Levinites read, how they dressed, what they ate, when they slept and who they loved, discouraging them from socialising with “outsiders”.
Nothing should distract them from their music.
Ifsich, given the “me or your mother’ challenge in 1968, stepped through the door.
Nightly gatherings at Levine’s home would include anything from ritual humiliation to sex with the “maestro” himself, or mutual masturbation sessions within the group, it was claimed.
“I thought it was sex for my improvement, sex to make things better,” Ifsich said.
“Obviously that’s not what it was, but we were led to believe that.”
Former members said Levine orchestrated all of the sexual episodes.
“Basically, the theory was if you were less inhibited sexually, you’d be a better musician.”
It was alleged he’d encourage sexual activities and tests among them, or focus on one student and himself.
“It was your job, basically, to service him under the guise of improving your music playing,” Ifsich said.
In one test, cellist Lynn Harrell claimed, female Levinites would try to sexually seduce blindfolded male Levinites.
A BURNING HOUSE, A BABY, AND BEETHOVEN
“The idea was to prevent yourself from getting an erection,” Harrell said. The aim, he said, was to test the men’s resolve and dedication to music.
Another “test”, it was claimed, gave a scenario of a burning house, and a choice of whether to save a baby, or the only remaining copy of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Former Levinites claimed they’d be told to end relationships with family or friends, and stopped from watching TV or reading.
Ifsich said he was punished for going to his sister’s wedding in 1970.
“This was a cult,” said one former member who declined to be identified because he has never told his family about the experience.
“I was so young. I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. The guy was such a brilliant musician [I figured] maybe he knows what he’s talking about, so for a couple of years I was pretty much brainwashed.”
They were lured by Levine’s undeniable charisma and talent — at the age of just 21 he was lauded for that, and already identifiable as much for his wild hair and imposing presence as his ability to draw incredible performances out of the orchestras he directed.
The Levinites reportedly kept themselves apart, fed by words of praise and his private instruction. To draw them in, they said, he would shine the light of his attention on them, then alienate them, then quiz them, and welcome them back into the fold.
Some overtures came when he invited a favoured student to meet for private practice on a piece of music.
The meeting would veer into questions on topics ranging from what they ate to their sexuality, one former student claimed. Some answered and were welcomed into the fold. Others, uncomfortable, kept their distance.
THE FALLOUT
Like disgraced former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who has now been charged with offences which could see him face life in prison, Levine had been whispered about for years.
Accusations of sexual misconduct had surfaced both in Europe, where Levine was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for a time, as well is in the US, but never gained traction as Levine vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
But the December 2017 allegations came on the back of the #MeToo movement which Weinstein’s downfall kickstarted, and emboldened more to come forward.
In May, in the face of Levine’s sacking lawsuit, the Met Opera sued him right back, according to The New York Times, and filed court papers detailing previously unreported accusations of sexual harassment and abuse against him which the Met said were “credible” evidence that Levine had “used his reputation and position of power to prey upon and abuse artists,” and citing examples of alleged sexual misconduct from the 1970s through to 1999.
The Met’s lawsuit details seven accusations of misconduct by Levine — five of which had not been previously reported.
Levine’s lawyers filed an answer to the Met’s papers saying the company “has chosen to create sensationalised allegations … all of which have no legal or factual basis whatsoever”.
His legal team has since presented excerpts of a “love letter” written by one of his original accusers — the then 19-year-old Pai — to discredit the claims of sex abuse.
Pai says the pair met when he was four, and at 15, their encounters progressed from “uncomfortable” hand-holding to sexual acts which continued for years.
Pai told the New York Post Levine using the letters to try to clear his name was “sad”.
“He has an inability to see that he’s done anything wrong,” Pai, now 48, said.
“The letters were the result of (my) many, many times acting in a way that was unhealthy for me.
“I don’t dispute the letters, but their spin on them makes my case even stronger. Because of the abuse, I was hooked on him like a drug, even though it was bad for me.”
Originally published as Awful choice: Inside the ‘cult’ of conductor James Levine
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