James Levine

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Warning: this episode contains discussions of child sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and workplace sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Many people may have seen Maestro, a biopic about the American conductor Leonard Bernstein, a handsome and extroverted communicator. The next most famous gay Jewish conductor of the 20th century was, in many ways, Bernstein’s opposite. Neither handsome nor extroverted, he made his musical mark not as a flamboyant podium acrobat or someone who communicated with the public but as a musician’s musician. His career ended after years of rumors culminated in several serious allegations of sexual harassment and assault, including against teenaged boys. We talk about beauty and power and what it means when people who make great art also do terrible things. Click here to subscribe to our monthly podcast "Extra Bad Gays" and support the work we do to make the show. ----more---- SOURCES: Michael Cooper, “Met Opera to Investigate James Levine Over Sexual Abuse Accusation,” The New York Times, December 3, 2017, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/arts/music/james-levine-sexual-misconduct-met-opera.html Michael Cooper, “Met Opera Reels as Fourth Man Accuses James Levine of Sexual Abuse,” The New York Times, December 5, 2017, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/arts/music/james-levine-met-opera.html Michael Cooper, “James Levine’s Final Act at the Met Ends in Disgrace,” The New York Times, March 12, 2018, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/arts/music/james-levine-metropolitan-opera.html Matt Dobkin, “Conductor James Levine Spurns Opera Gossips,” New York Magazine, January 6, 2006, https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/features/15494/; Malcolm Gay and Kay Lazar, “In the Maestro’s Thrall,” The Boston Globe, March 2, 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/02/cleveland/cn2Sathz0EMJcdpYouoPjM/story.html Ben Miller, “Silence, Breaking,” VAN Magazine, December 7, 2017, http://van-magazine.com/mag/james-levine-silence-breaking/ Ben Miller, “Shush Money,” VAN Magazine, May 23, 2018, http://van-magazine.com/mag/james-levine-met-opera-hush-money/ John Rockwell, “Met Opera Changes Managerial Balance,” The New York Times, July 23, 1987, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/23/arts/met-opera-changes-managerial-balance.html Emily Saul and Ben Feuerherd, “Met Opera, James Levine Reach Settlements amid Sex Misconduct Claims,” New York Post, August 6, 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/08/06/met-opera-james-levine-reach-settlements-amid-sex-misconduct-claims/ James B. Stewart and Michael Cooper, “The Met Opera Fired James Levine, Citing Sexual Misconduct. He Was Paid $3.5 Million.,” The New York Times, September 21, 2020, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/arts/music/met-opera-james-levine.html Anastasia Tsioulcas, “James Levine Accused Of Sexual Misconduct By 5 More Men,” NPR, May 19, 2018, sec. The Industry, https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/05/19/612621436/james-levine-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-by-5-more-men Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, “Legendary Opera Conductor Molested Teen for Years: Police Report,” New York Post, December 2, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/12/02/legendary-opera-conductor-molested-teen-for-years-police-report/ Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, “Disgraced Met Conductor’s Brother Was ‘in on the Game’: Police Report,” December 9, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/12/09/disgraced-met-conductors-brother-was-in-on-the-game-police-report/ Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, our outro music was made for us by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just a note to listeners, this episode contains frank discussions of child sexual abuse and workplace sexual harassment.
0:08.0	And if that's not something that you would like to hear about, this is probably not the episode for you. Hello and welcome to season seven episode five of Badgays, a podcast all about evil and complicated quay people in history.
0:34.7	My name's Hulemi.
0:35.5	I'm a writer, author, an artist.
0:37.2	And I'm Ben Miller, a writer, researcher, and member of the board of the Shvullus Museum in Berlin.
0:42.9	So last week we discussed Allegabalus, the Roman god king emperor, who drowned his dinner companions in a sea of rose petals, supposedly.
0:53.9	Who are we talking about this week, Ben?
0:56.6	Well, Hugh, many people at this point may have seen the Netflix film Maestro,
1:02.7	which is a biopic about the American conductor Leonard Bernstein.
1:07.4	The film tells the story of the dashing conductor and composer, who was born into a Jewish-American family in the Boston suburbs, became a brilliantly talented young musician in New York, lived an essentially openly gay life there in the 1940s, but was pressured to settle down in order to arrive at the commanding heights of the musical profession, who fell in love with
1:28.3	and married the actress Felicia Monte Alegre, had three children, led the New York Philharmonic,
1:33.3	continued to engage in gay affairs, and passed away from emphysema. He was a chain smoker
1:37.4	in the early 1990s. And Bernstein was, above all, a great communicator. His audience was the
1:43.7	public, even when he was conducting.
1:45.4	There's a moment in the film, if people have seen it, when Bradley Cooper as Bernstein, is conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and the ecstatic conclusion of Gustav Mahler's second symphony.
1:56.0	And the symphony is entitled Resurrection. And this moment is the moment when the resurrection is being
2:00.8	musically depicted. You have blaring horns, two singer soloists and a vast choir, all singing
2:07.0	at the top of their lungs, a hundred-piece symphony orchestra, every instrument playing
2:11.2	as loud as possible, and Cooper's Bernstein is jumping and lunging and twisting into
2:16.9	contortions and sweat is falling off of his brow.
2:19.3	And you might think it's all a little bit much.
2:21.3	But if you go and actually find the video of Bernstein conducting this music, it's based on, if anything, Cooper is somewhat playing it down.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.