The Metropolitan Opera press release dated April 14 stating that long-time music director James Levine is retiring at age 72 due to health issues — without even a perfunctory quote from the departing maestro himself — has left all opera fans agog at the possibilities of who may be hired for the job. No one can really replace a conductor who has run the ship at the Met continuously since 1976, and it seems unlikely that any musician will be permitted such a lengthy stay at the top again. Opera is an innately hysterical art form, where primal, tantrum-like shrieks are rewarded with ovations. Little if anything about selecting a new Met opera director is likely to be rational. Possible successors to Levine, only of handful of whom have been widely discussed, include Gianandrea Noseda, Andris Nelsons, Simone Young, Kazushi Ono, Richard Farnes, Ivor Bolton, Evelino Pidò, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; it may be helpful to consider a few generally overlooked alternatives, some of them Jewish.
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