New York (AFP)

Conductor James Levine has died at the age of 77, three years after a career-ending sexual abuse scandal, tarnished for good despite forty years as musical director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

James Levine died of "natural causes" on March 9 in Palm Springs, California, his longtime doctor, Len Horovitz, told AFP on Wednesday, without further details, confirming information from the New York Times.

Appointed musical director of the Metropolitan Opera in 1976, the native of Cincinnati will have transformed the institution, to the point of registering it among the great operas of the world whereas it was discredited until then.

While honoring the classics of the repertoire, he has included contemporary works that had no right of citizenship as well as neglected composers on the program.

He also made the Met a live performance monster in the United States, with an annual budget of over $ 300 million in 2019.

With his thick curly hair, metal-rimmed glasses, expressive style and outgoing personality, James Levine had established himself as one of the most recognizable figures in the world of classical music.

In total, he has conducted the Met Orchestra over 2,550 times.

Recognized worldwide, he was also the musical director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the early 2000s, as well as of the Munich Philharmonic from 1999 to 2004.

But he experienced a series of health problems from 2006, from a shoulder injury following a fall on stage to kidney failure through a herniated disc.

In 2016, he had agreed to give up the musical direction of the Met, suffering from Parkinson's disease, which had handicapped him for many years.

- "Credible evidence" of sexual abuse -

He nevertheless remained honorary musical director, until his suspension in December 2017, after the publication of testimonies accusing him of sexual abuse in the New York Times and the New York Post.

The two dailies mentioned the case of a man accusing the conductor of touching from 1985, when he was only 15, until 1993.

Three other men have also publicly claimed to have been sexually assaulted by James Levine, with the oldest alleged facts dating back to 1968, although he has not been criminally prosecuted.

All described a man older than them who had played on his status and influence to get them to let it go.

In March 2018, the Met published the findings of its investigation, which confirmed the existence of "credible evidence" that the musician had indeed engaged "in harassment and sexually abusive behavior."

The opera had then put an end to all the functions that James Levine still occupied within the institution.

Quebec conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin took over as musical director of the Met at the start of the 2018 school year.

After the departure of James Levine, the conductor took the Metropolitan Opera to court, claiming $ 5.8 million on the basis of his ten-year honorary musical director contract.

The Met then responded by seizing in turn civil justice.

The two sides eventually came to an amicable settlement, with James Levine's historic employer paying him $ 3.5 million, according to the New York Times.

James Levine is among the many personalities dismissed in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which freed the voices of the victims and pushed towards the exit of dozens of men of power, business leaders, personalities of the arts and entertainment, but also politicians.

"He was, in his day, a great conductor, but that's not what will remain," wrote on Twitter, Terry Teachout, playwright who has also written several opera librarians.

"This is the price of unacceptable behavior."

© 2021 AFP