Levine Returns to the Met

He’s back.

James Levine returned to the pit of the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday night for the first time since he was sidelined by injury more than two years ago, and before he even lifted his baton he was greeted with a standing ovation that lasted a minute and nine seconds.

Mr. Levine gave the effusive crowd a wave, turned his motorized wheelchair around to face the orchestra he has helped shape for more than 40 years, and began conducting his 2,443rd performance at the Met â€" Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte.”

It was his first performance at the Met since he suffered a spinal injury in a fall two years ago that makes walking difficult. So Mr. Levine entered the pit on a motorized wheelchair and used a series of lifts and ramps installed by Met technicians to clear his path to a rising mechanical podium, called the “maestro lift,” that he conducted from. 

Mr. Levine, 70, said during a recent interview that he was eagerly looking forward to returning to the house he is most closely associated with. (He played a concert at Carnegie Hall last spring.)

“This is such an amazing company,” Mr. Levine said after a session during the pre-season rehearsal period, as he prepared to make his return. “This is such a large number of dedicated artists under one roof, perhaps the largest single group under one roof in the world. Surely it’s one of them.”

Mr. Levine said that after a long run of ill health, surgeries, and rehabilitation therapy, he felt fortunate to get the chance to return to doing what he loves and feels most cut out for: making music.

“If someone asks me what’s the difference between conducting opera, and conducting symphonic repertoire or playing chamber repertoire â€" the answer is the differences are only technical,’’ he said. “Musically it’s all the same. It’s physically different to conduct opera than to play a piano quintet or a lieder recital or conduct a symphony. But I think other than that, the thing you’re actually trying to do is remarkably the same: you’re looking for your best way of arriving at the composer’s intention and communicating it to the listener. Very much easier said than done!”