James Levine leading the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2016.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Robert Altman for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nThe Metropolitan Opera suspended James Levine, its revered conductor and former music director, on Sunday after three men came forward with accusations that Mr. Levine sexually abused them decades ago, when the men were teenagers.<\/p>\n
Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, announced that the company was suspending its four-decade relationship with Mr. Levine, 74, and canceling his upcoming conducting engagements after learning from The New York Times on Sunday about the accounts of the three men, who described a series of similar sexual encounters beginning in the late 1960s. The Met has also asked an outside law firm to investigate Mr. Levine\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we await the results of the investigation, based on these news reports the Met has made the decision to act now,\u201d Mr. Gelb said in an interview, adding that the Met\u2019s board supported his actions. \u201cThis is a tragedy for anyone whose life has been affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The accusations of sexual misconduct stretch back to 1968.<\/p>\n
Chris Brown, who played principal bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for more than three decades, said that Mr. Levine masturbated him that summer \u2014 and then coaxed him to reciprocate \u2014 when Mr. Brown was 17 at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan. Mr. Levine, then 25, was a rising star on the summer program\u2019s faculty. James Lestock said that Mr. Levine also masturbated him there that summer when Mr. Lestock was 17 and a cello student \u2014 the first of many sexual encounters with Mr. Levine that have haunted him. And Ashok Pai, who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Festival, where Mr. Levine was music director, said that he was sexually abused by Mr. Levine starting in the summer of 1986, when Mr. Pai was 16 \u2014 an accusation he made last year\u00a0in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department<\/a>\u00a0in Illinois.<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/12\/04\/arts\/04LEVINE2\/04LEVINE2-master675.jpg\")
Ashok Pai on Sunday. He accused Mr. Levine of sexually abusing him for years, starting when Mr. Pai was 16.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Karsten Moran for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know why it was so traumatic,\u201d Mr. Brown, who is now 66, said in a recent interview at his home in St. Paul, fighting tears at the memory, which he said he was moved to share as part of the national reckoning over sexual misconduct. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I got so depressed. But it has to be because of what happened. And I care deeply for those who were also abused, all the people who were in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Told of the accusations, a spokesman for Mr. Levine did not comment on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Speculation surrounding Mr. Levine\u2019s private life has swirled in classical music circles for decades as he rose to a position of unprecedented prominence at the Met, leading more than 2,500 performances there. Though he stepped down as music director last year after a long struggle with\u00a0health problems<\/a>, Mr. Levine had been scheduled to lead a highly anticipated new production of Puccini\u2019s \u201cTosca\u201d starting New Year\u2019s Eve and two other productions in coming months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nBut now the Met \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest performing arts organization and one of the world\u2019s most prestigious opera houses \u2014 finds itself in the position that Hollywood studios, television networks and newsrooms have confronted in recent weeks, answering questions about what it knew about allegations of sexual misconduct against one of its stars, and what actions it did and did not take.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said allegations about Mr. Levine had reached the Met administration\u2019s upper levels twice before, to his knowledge.<\/p>\n
One was in 1979, when Anthony A. Bliss, who was then the Met\u2019s executive director, wrote a letter to a board member about unspecified accusations about Mr. Levine that had been made in an unsigned letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not believe there is any truth whatsoever to the charges,\u201d Mr. Bliss wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, which said the Met had spoken \u201cextensively\u201d with Mr. Levine and his manager. \u201cScurrilous rumors have been circulating for some months and have often been accompanied by other charges which we know for a fact are untrue.\u201d (Mr. Bliss\u00a0died in 1991<\/a>, and the original, unsigned letter is unavailable, so the specific accusations against Mr. Levine in it remain unclear.)<\/p>\n\nDOCUMENT<\/h3>\n1979 Metropolitan Opera Letter on Accusations About James Levine<\/h2>\n
Anthony A. Bliss, then executive director of the Met Opera, wrote this letter to a Met board member who had received anonymous accusations about James Levine, the music director at the time.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>
\n![](\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/12\/03\/arts\/image-document-levine\/image-document-levine-master495.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/i>\u00a0OPEN DOCUMENT<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nAnd then in October 2016, after Mr. Levine had stepped down from his position as music director, Mr. Gelb said he was contacted by a detective with the Lake Forest Police asking questions about Mr. Pai\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said that he briefed the board\u2019s leadership and that Mr. Levine denied the accusations. The company took no further action, waiting to see what the police determined. Then, on Saturday, the Met decided to investigate Mr. Levine after media inquiries about his behavior with young men.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said that the Met had appointed\u00a0Robert J. Cleary<\/a>, a partner at the Proskauer Rose law firm who was previously a United States attorney in New Jersey and Illinois, to lead its investigation.<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/12\/04\/arts\/04LEVINE4-SUB\/04LEVINE4-SUB-master675.jpg\")
Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s general manager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Sara Krulwich\/The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nThe men coming forward now said that some of the abuse started years ago, at the beginning of Mr. Levine\u2019s career, and that this sort of behavior had been widely rumored in music circles.<\/p>\n
Mr. Brown, the former bass player in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, said that he had been surprised in the summer of 1968 when Mr. Levine made him principal bass at Meadow Brook, given that Mr. Brown was only 17 and had just finished his junior year of high school, while other players were older and more experienced. He said that he was initially flattered when Mr. Levine, the conductor of the school\u2019s orchestra and the director of its orchestral institute, began to invite him to his dorm room late at night.<\/p>\n
At their third meeting, Mr. Brown said, Mr. Levine began talking about sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point I think it was basically a combination of fatigue and being young that allowed me to go to the bed \u2014 it was the bottom bunk \u2014 and have him masturbate me,\u201d Mr. Brown said. \u201cAnd then, almost immediately, he asked for reciprocation. And I have some very, very strong pictures in my memory, and one of them was being on the floor, and he was on the bottom bunk, and I put my hand on his penis, and I felt so ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next morning I was late to rehearsal,\u201d said Mr. Brown, who had been raised a Christian Scientist and recalled that he had received little sex education. \u201cI was in a complete daze. Whatever happens when you get abused had happened, and it wasn\u2019t just sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n
At their next meeting, Mr. Brown said, he told Mr. Levine that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, and asked if they could continue to make music as they had before.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he answered no,\u201d Mr. Brown said, adding that Mr. Levine hardly looked at him for the rest of the summer, even while conducting him. \u201cIt was a terrible, terrible summer.\u201d (That fall, after he returned for his senior year of high school, at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. Brown told his roommate about Mr. Levine\u2019s sexual advances at Meadow Brook, the roommate confirmed in an interview.)<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2017\/12\/04\/arts\/04levine4\/04levine4-master675.jpg\")
James Lestock at his home in Asheville, N.C., on Sunday. He accused James Levine of sexual misconduct when Mr. Lestock was a teenager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Jacob Biba for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nMr. Lestock, the teenage cello student at Meadow Brook, said in a telephone interview that he had a similar experience that summer in Mr. Levine\u2019s dorm room.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the discussion, he suggested that I take my clothes off, because this would be natural and honest and expand my outlook on the world,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. \u201cMy initial response included the word \u2018no.\u2019 I was not interested in that. But he ignored that, and pursued the point, and convinced me to let him masturbate me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Levine at that point was also an assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra, and was surrounded by a tight-knit clique of musicians who were awed by him and followed him as his career took off. Mr. Lestock joined that group, whose members studied music together, traveled together, ate together, and sometimes lived together. But he said that over the years he was sometimes subjected to humiliating sexual encounters with Mr. Levine.<\/p>\n
At one point in Cleveland, where he moved in 1969 to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he said that Mr. Levine encouraged the members of the group to put on blindfolds and masturbate partners they could not see. They did, Mr. Lestock said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the extent to which he had control,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. Another member of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to guard his privacy, said that he had also taken part in a blindfolded masturbation session.<\/p>\n
A few years later, in a hotel near the Ravinia Festival, Mr. Lestock said that Mr. Levine caused him physical pain, telling him that he should \u201cexpand\u201d his \u201crange of emotions\u201d and pinching him \u2014 repeatedly and hard \u2014 on his legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I started to break down and cry, he continued to try to hurt me,\u201d Mr. Lestock said of Mr. Levine, who was music director of Ravinia from 1973 through 1993.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Lestock said he felt powerless to leave. \u201cIf I had left the group at the point, I would have had no career, no income, no friends, and have been totally alone in the world,\u201d he said. After following Mr. Levine to New York in the early 1970s, Mr. Lestock, who is now 67, eventually left the group, and music.<\/p>\n
Mr. Pai said that he first met Mr. Levine when he was four years old and his parents took him backstage after a Ravinia concert. In 1985, when Mr. Pai was 15, he said, Mr. Levine gave him a ride home and began holding his hand in an \u201cincredibly sensual way.\u201d The following summer, he said, Mr. Levine touched his penis in a hotel room near the festival, beginning what he described as years of sexual encounters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was vulnerable,\u201d said Mr. Pai, who is 48. \u201cI was under this man\u2019s sway, I saw him as a safe, protective person, he took advantage of me, he abused me and it has really messed me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that the relationship continued for years and that his feelings were complicated: He shared a copy of a Western Union Mailgram he had sent to Mr. Levine at the Salzburg Festival in 1988 that contained the postscript \u201cP.S. I love you.\u201d But Mr. Pai came to realize that, in those early years, he had been too young to give consent.<\/p>\n
Speculation about Mr. Levine\u2019s private life has occasionally come into public view. In 1987, Mr. Levine dismissed talk of wrongdoing in\u00a0an interview with The Times<\/a>, saying that \u201cboth my friends and my enemies checked it out and to this day, I don\u2019t have the faintest idea where those rumors came from or what purpose they served.\u201d<\/p>\nA decade later, more rumors circulated in Germany, when politicians and media outlets\u00a0debated<\/a>\u00a0his appointment to become the music director of the Munich Philharmonic, beginning in 1999. In an interview in The Times in 1998, Mr. Levine\u00a0declined to respond<\/a>\u00a0to the speculation.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve never been able to speak in public generalities about my private life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ashok Pai on Sunday. He accused Mr. Levine of sexually abusing him for years, starting when Mr. Pai was 16.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Karsten Moran for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know why it was so traumatic,\u201d Mr. Brown, who is now 66, said in a recent interview at his home in St. Paul, fighting tears at the memory, which he said he was moved to share as part of the national reckoning over sexual misconduct. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I got so depressed. But it has to be because of what happened. And I care deeply for those who were also abused, all the people who were in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Told of the accusations, a spokesman for Mr. Levine did not comment on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Speculation surrounding Mr. Levine\u2019s private life has swirled in classical music circles for decades as he rose to a position of unprecedented prominence at the Met, leading more than 2,500 performances there. Though he stepped down as music director last year after a long struggle with\u00a0health problems<\/a>, Mr. Levine had been scheduled to lead a highly anticipated new production of Puccini\u2019s \u201cTosca\u201d starting New Year\u2019s Eve and two other productions in coming months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nBut now the Met \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest performing arts organization and one of the world\u2019s most prestigious opera houses \u2014 finds itself in the position that Hollywood studios, television networks and newsrooms have confronted in recent weeks, answering questions about what it knew about allegations of sexual misconduct against one of its stars, and what actions it did and did not take.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said allegations about Mr. Levine had reached the Met administration\u2019s upper levels twice before, to his knowledge.<\/p>\n
One was in 1979, when Anthony A. Bliss, who was then the Met\u2019s executive director, wrote a letter to a board member about unspecified accusations about Mr. Levine that had been made in an unsigned letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not believe there is any truth whatsoever to the charges,\u201d Mr. Bliss wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, which said the Met had spoken \u201cextensively\u201d with Mr. Levine and his manager. \u201cScurrilous rumors have been circulating for some months and have often been accompanied by other charges which we know for a fact are untrue.\u201d (Mr. Bliss\u00a0died in 1991<\/a>, and the original, unsigned letter is unavailable, so the specific accusations against Mr. Levine in it remain unclear.)<\/p>\n\nDOCUMENT<\/h3>\n1979 Metropolitan Opera Letter on Accusations About James Levine<\/h2>\n
Anthony A. Bliss, then executive director of the Met Opera, wrote this letter to a Met board member who had received anonymous accusations about James Levine, the music director at the time.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>
\n<\/div>\n<\/i>\u00a0OPEN DOCUMENT<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nAnd then in October 2016, after Mr. Levine had stepped down from his position as music director, Mr. Gelb said he was contacted by a detective with the Lake Forest Police asking questions about Mr. Pai\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said that he briefed the board\u2019s leadership and that Mr. Levine denied the accusations. The company took no further action, waiting to see what the police determined. Then, on Saturday, the Met decided to investigate Mr. Levine after media inquiries about his behavior with young men.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said that the Met had appointed\u00a0Robert J. Cleary<\/a>, a partner at the Proskauer Rose law firm who was previously a United States attorney in New Jersey and Illinois, to lead its investigation.<\/p>\n\nPeter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s general manager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Sara Krulwich\/The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nThe men coming forward now said that some of the abuse started years ago, at the beginning of Mr. Levine\u2019s career, and that this sort of behavior had been widely rumored in music circles.<\/p>\n
Mr. Brown, the former bass player in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, said that he had been surprised in the summer of 1968 when Mr. Levine made him principal bass at Meadow Brook, given that Mr. Brown was only 17 and had just finished his junior year of high school, while other players were older and more experienced. He said that he was initially flattered when Mr. Levine, the conductor of the school\u2019s orchestra and the director of its orchestral institute, began to invite him to his dorm room late at night.<\/p>\n
At their third meeting, Mr. Brown said, Mr. Levine began talking about sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point I think it was basically a combination of fatigue and being young that allowed me to go to the bed \u2014 it was the bottom bunk \u2014 and have him masturbate me,\u201d Mr. Brown said. \u201cAnd then, almost immediately, he asked for reciprocation. And I have some very, very strong pictures in my memory, and one of them was being on the floor, and he was on the bottom bunk, and I put my hand on his penis, and I felt so ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next morning I was late to rehearsal,\u201d said Mr. Brown, who had been raised a Christian Scientist and recalled that he had received little sex education. \u201cI was in a complete daze. Whatever happens when you get abused had happened, and it wasn\u2019t just sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n
At their next meeting, Mr. Brown said, he told Mr. Levine that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, and asked if they could continue to make music as they had before.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he answered no,\u201d Mr. Brown said, adding that Mr. Levine hardly looked at him for the rest of the summer, even while conducting him. \u201cIt was a terrible, terrible summer.\u201d (That fall, after he returned for his senior year of high school, at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. Brown told his roommate about Mr. Levine\u2019s sexual advances at Meadow Brook, the roommate confirmed in an interview.)<\/p>\n
\nJames Lestock at his home in Asheville, N.C., on Sunday. He accused James Levine of sexual misconduct when Mr. Lestock was a teenager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Jacob Biba for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nMr. Lestock, the teenage cello student at Meadow Brook, said in a telephone interview that he had a similar experience that summer in Mr. Levine\u2019s dorm room.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the discussion, he suggested that I take my clothes off, because this would be natural and honest and expand my outlook on the world,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. \u201cMy initial response included the word \u2018no.\u2019 I was not interested in that. But he ignored that, and pursued the point, and convinced me to let him masturbate me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Levine at that point was also an assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra, and was surrounded by a tight-knit clique of musicians who were awed by him and followed him as his career took off. Mr. Lestock joined that group, whose members studied music together, traveled together, ate together, and sometimes lived together. But he said that over the years he was sometimes subjected to humiliating sexual encounters with Mr. Levine.<\/p>\n
At one point in Cleveland, where he moved in 1969 to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he said that Mr. Levine encouraged the members of the group to put on blindfolds and masturbate partners they could not see. They did, Mr. Lestock said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the extent to which he had control,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. Another member of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to guard his privacy, said that he had also taken part in a blindfolded masturbation session.<\/p>\n
A few years later, in a hotel near the Ravinia Festival, Mr. Lestock said that Mr. Levine caused him physical pain, telling him that he should \u201cexpand\u201d his \u201crange of emotions\u201d and pinching him \u2014 repeatedly and hard \u2014 on his legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I started to break down and cry, he continued to try to hurt me,\u201d Mr. Lestock said of Mr. Levine, who was music director of Ravinia from 1973 through 1993.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Lestock said he felt powerless to leave. \u201cIf I had left the group at the point, I would have had no career, no income, no friends, and have been totally alone in the world,\u201d he said. After following Mr. Levine to New York in the early 1970s, Mr. Lestock, who is now 67, eventually left the group, and music.<\/p>\n
Mr. Pai said that he first met Mr. Levine when he was four years old and his parents took him backstage after a Ravinia concert. In 1985, when Mr. Pai was 15, he said, Mr. Levine gave him a ride home and began holding his hand in an \u201cincredibly sensual way.\u201d The following summer, he said, Mr. Levine touched his penis in a hotel room near the festival, beginning what he described as years of sexual encounters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was vulnerable,\u201d said Mr. Pai, who is 48. \u201cI was under this man\u2019s sway, I saw him as a safe, protective person, he took advantage of me, he abused me and it has really messed me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that the relationship continued for years and that his feelings were complicated: He shared a copy of a Western Union Mailgram he had sent to Mr. Levine at the Salzburg Festival in 1988 that contained the postscript \u201cP.S. I love you.\u201d But Mr. Pai came to realize that, in those early years, he had been too young to give consent.<\/p>\n
Speculation about Mr. Levine\u2019s private life has occasionally come into public view. In 1987, Mr. Levine dismissed talk of wrongdoing in\u00a0an interview with The Times<\/a>, saying that \u201cboth my friends and my enemies checked it out and to this day, I don\u2019t have the faintest idea where those rumors came from or what purpose they served.\u201d<\/p>\nA decade later, more rumors circulated in Germany, when politicians and media outlets\u00a0debated<\/a>\u00a0his appointment to become the music director of the Munich Philharmonic, beginning in 1999. In an interview in The Times in 1998, Mr. Levine\u00a0declined to respond<\/a>\u00a0to the speculation.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve never been able to speak in public generalities about my private life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But now the Met \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest performing arts organization and one of the world\u2019s most prestigious opera houses \u2014 finds itself in the position that Hollywood studios, television networks and newsrooms have confronted in recent weeks, answering questions about what it knew about allegations of sexual misconduct against one of its stars, and what actions it did and did not take.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gelb said allegations about Mr. Levine had reached the Met administration\u2019s upper levels twice before, to his knowledge.<\/p>\n
One was in 1979, when Anthony A. Bliss, who was then the Met\u2019s executive director, wrote a letter to a board member about unspecified accusations about Mr. Levine that had been made in an unsigned letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not believe there is any truth whatsoever to the charges,\u201d Mr. Bliss wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, which said the Met had spoken \u201cextensively\u201d with Mr. Levine and his manager. \u201cScurrilous rumors have been circulating for some months and have often been accompanied by other charges which we know for a fact are untrue.\u201d (Mr. Bliss\u00a0died in 1991<\/a>, and the original, unsigned letter is unavailable, so the specific accusations against Mr. Levine in it remain unclear.)<\/p>\n Anthony A. Bliss, then executive director of the Met Opera, wrote this letter to a Met board member who had received anonymous accusations about James Levine, the music director at the time.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption> And then in October 2016, after Mr. Levine had stepped down from his position as music director, Mr. Gelb said he was contacted by a detective with the Lake Forest Police asking questions about Mr. Pai\u2019s report.<\/p>\n Mr. Gelb said that he briefed the board\u2019s leadership and that Mr. Levine denied the accusations. The company took no further action, waiting to see what the police determined. Then, on Saturday, the Met decided to investigate Mr. Levine after media inquiries about his behavior with young men.<\/p>\n Mr. Gelb said that the Met had appointed\u00a0Robert J. Cleary<\/a>, a partner at the Proskauer Rose law firm who was previously a United States attorney in New Jersey and Illinois, to lead its investigation.<\/p>\n The men coming forward now said that some of the abuse started years ago, at the beginning of Mr. Levine\u2019s career, and that this sort of behavior had been widely rumored in music circles.<\/p>\n Mr. Brown, the former bass player in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, said that he had been surprised in the summer of 1968 when Mr. Levine made him principal bass at Meadow Brook, given that Mr. Brown was only 17 and had just finished his junior year of high school, while other players were older and more experienced. He said that he was initially flattered when Mr. Levine, the conductor of the school\u2019s orchestra and the director of its orchestral institute, began to invite him to his dorm room late at night.<\/p>\n At their third meeting, Mr. Brown said, Mr. Levine began talking about sex.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point I think it was basically a combination of fatigue and being young that allowed me to go to the bed \u2014 it was the bottom bunk \u2014 and have him masturbate me,\u201d Mr. Brown said. \u201cAnd then, almost immediately, he asked for reciprocation. And I have some very, very strong pictures in my memory, and one of them was being on the floor, and he was on the bottom bunk, and I put my hand on his penis, and I felt so ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe next morning I was late to rehearsal,\u201d said Mr. Brown, who had been raised a Christian Scientist and recalled that he had received little sex education. \u201cI was in a complete daze. Whatever happens when you get abused had happened, and it wasn\u2019t just sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n At their next meeting, Mr. Brown said, he told Mr. Levine that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, and asked if they could continue to make music as they had before.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he answered no,\u201d Mr. Brown said, adding that Mr. Levine hardly looked at him for the rest of the summer, even while conducting him. \u201cIt was a terrible, terrible summer.\u201d (That fall, after he returned for his senior year of high school, at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. Brown told his roommate about Mr. Levine\u2019s sexual advances at Meadow Brook, the roommate confirmed in an interview.)<\/p>\n Mr. Lestock, the teenage cello student at Meadow Brook, said in a telephone interview that he had a similar experience that summer in Mr. Levine\u2019s dorm room.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the discussion, he suggested that I take my clothes off, because this would be natural and honest and expand my outlook on the world,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. \u201cMy initial response included the word \u2018no.\u2019 I was not interested in that. But he ignored that, and pursued the point, and convinced me to let him masturbate me.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Levine at that point was also an assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra, and was surrounded by a tight-knit clique of musicians who were awed by him and followed him as his career took off. Mr. Lestock joined that group, whose members studied music together, traveled together, ate together, and sometimes lived together. But he said that over the years he was sometimes subjected to humiliating sexual encounters with Mr. Levine.<\/p>\n At one point in Cleveland, where he moved in 1969 to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he said that Mr. Levine encouraged the members of the group to put on blindfolds and masturbate partners they could not see. They did, Mr. Lestock said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was the extent to which he had control,\u201d Mr. Lestock said. Another member of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to guard his privacy, said that he had also taken part in a blindfolded masturbation session.<\/p>\n A few years later, in a hotel near the Ravinia Festival, Mr. Lestock said that Mr. Levine caused him physical pain, telling him that he should \u201cexpand\u201d his \u201crange of emotions\u201d and pinching him \u2014 repeatedly and hard \u2014 on his legs.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I started to break down and cry, he continued to try to hurt me,\u201d Mr. Lestock said of Mr. Levine, who was music director of Ravinia from 1973 through 1993.<\/p>\n But Mr. Lestock said he felt powerless to leave. \u201cIf I had left the group at the point, I would have had no career, no income, no friends, and have been totally alone in the world,\u201d he said. After following Mr. Levine to New York in the early 1970s, Mr. Lestock, who is now 67, eventually left the group, and music.<\/p>\n Mr. Pai said that he first met Mr. Levine when he was four years old and his parents took him backstage after a Ravinia concert. In 1985, when Mr. Pai was 15, he said, Mr. Levine gave him a ride home and began holding his hand in an \u201cincredibly sensual way.\u201d The following summer, he said, Mr. Levine touched his penis in a hotel room near the festival, beginning what he described as years of sexual encounters.<\/p>\n \u201cI was vulnerable,\u201d said Mr. Pai, who is 48. \u201cI was under this man\u2019s sway, I saw him as a safe, protective person, he took advantage of me, he abused me and it has really messed me up.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the relationship continued for years and that his feelings were complicated: He shared a copy of a Western Union Mailgram he had sent to Mr. Levine at the Salzburg Festival in 1988 that contained the postscript \u201cP.S. I love you.\u201d But Mr. Pai came to realize that, in those early years, he had been too young to give consent.<\/p>\n Speculation about Mr. Levine\u2019s private life has occasionally come into public view. In 1987, Mr. Levine dismissed talk of wrongdoing in\u00a0an interview with The Times<\/a>, saying that \u201cboth my friends and my enemies checked it out and to this day, I don\u2019t have the faintest idea where those rumors came from or what purpose they served.\u201d<\/p>\n A decade later, more rumors circulated in Germany, when politicians and media outlets\u00a0debated<\/a>\u00a0his appointment to become the music director of the Munich Philharmonic, beginning in 1999. In an interview in The Times in 1998, Mr. Levine\u00a0declined to respond<\/a>\u00a0to the speculation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been able to speak in public generalities about my private life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nDOCUMENT<\/h3>\n
1979 Metropolitan Opera Letter on Accusations About James Levine<\/h2>\n
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<\/div>\nPeter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s general manager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Sara Krulwich\/The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\nJames Lestock at his home in Asheville, N.C., on Sunday. He accused James Levine of sexual misconduct when Mr. Lestock was a teenager.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit:\u00a0<\/span>Jacob Biba for The New York Times<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n