Conductor Levine, ousted after sex abuse inquiry, sues Met
NEW YORK — Conductor James Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday after a sexual misconduct investigation sank his storied career, saying the renowned company exploited baseless allegations to tarnish him and then fired him without so much as a phone call.
“Cynically hijacking the good will of the #MeToo movement,” the Met and its general manager, Peter Gelb, “brazenly seized on these allegations as a pretext to end a longstanding personal campaign to force Levine out of the Met,” said Levine’s suit, filed in a Manhattan state court.
But a lawyer for the Met said Levine wasn’t the victim of a vendetta but a man fired because of “credible and corroborated evidence of sexual misconduct.”
“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,” attorney Bettina (Betsy) Plevan said in a statement.