Legendary maestro's final act cut short due to prior blindfolded flute performances

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The Metropolitan Opera fired the conductor James Levine on Monday evening, ending its association with a man who defined the company for more than four decades after an investigation found what the Met called credible evidence that Mr. Levine had engaged in “sexually abusive and harassing conduct.”

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Chris Brown said that Mr. Levine had abused him in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old student at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and Mr. Levine led the school’s orchestral institute. Mr. Brown, who went on to play principal bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, said that one night in the dorms, Mr. Levine had masturbated him and asked him to reciprocate — and then punished Mr. Brown when he declined to do so again, ignoring him for the rest of the summer, even when he was conducting him.

James Lestock, a cellist, said that he, too, was abused that summer when he was a student, and said that the abuse continued in Cleveland, where a tight-knit clique of musicians followed Mr. Levine, who was then an assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra on the cusp of a major career. He said that at one point Mr. Levine had the group don blindfolds and masturbate partners they could not see. (Another participant confirmed this in an interview.)

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