Several media organizations had looked into the rumors over the years, but they had been impossible to confirm. The accusations of misconduct went back to 1968 and had been the subject of talk in music circles since the mid-1970s. Levine, after three men came forward with accusations that he had abused them sexually decades before, when they were in their teens. That all changed in December 2017, when the Metropolitan Opera suspended all association with Mr. Even when conducting from a wheelchair, he remained a vigorous and indefatigable presence in American cultural life far beyond the rarefied opera world - widely considered the country’s most influential conductor since Leonard Bernstein. Levine had been in precarious health for more than a decade, canceling many of his performances after 2008 and undergoing spinal surgery.

Len Horovitz, his personal physician, confirmed the death but did not disclose the immediate cause. James Levine, 77, a conductor whose spectacular musical versatility and vitality - and near-infallible knowledge of the works he interpreted - made him one of the world’s most acclaimed orchestra leaders but who lived to see his legacy blighted by accusations of sexual abuse, died March 9 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif.

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