James Levine

Mike Ball reviews the BSO's opening performance of Stravinsky and Bartok, conducted by a chair-bound James Levine:

When I first saw his fancy office chair on his little dais, I was thinking he'd been immobilized. His staggering on-stage leaving heavily on a cane reinforced that sense.

Forget that. Come baton-waving time, he was if anything liberated by his chair, which became yet another tool instead of a limitation. If anything, he was more active last night than when he stood on two feet.