Met Opera Conductor James Levine Suspended for Sexual Abuse Charges

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons.)

The Washington Blade reports:

New York’s Metropolitan Opera has suspended conductor James Levine after three men have come forward with allegations that Levine sexually abused them as teenagers.

The New York Post first reported that Chris Brown, who played principal bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for more than 30 years, claimed that Levine masturbated him while he was a student at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan while Levine was on the summer program’s faculty. Brown was 17 at the time and Levine was 25.

James Lestock, now 67, alleges that when he was a 17-year-old cello student at the school Levine also masturbated him.

Ashok Pai also accuses Levine of sexually abusing him starting when he was 15 years old. Pai says he first met Levine at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Ill., in 1973 when Pai was four years old. He claims that once Pei became older Levine sexually abused him multiple times for years. 

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