Painting: Levine but It's Not Adam

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Sciatica- and tremor-prone conductor James Levine has been a source of inspiration to me. I find him all the more compelling a subject-matter because I'd expect from him bombast and extravagant arm-waving. But the Boston Symphony orchestra (BSO) conductor exhibited neither. 

Levine attempts to signal musicians with the slightest move of his fingers. He knows his crew. Heavy rehearsals helped. An orchestra builder.  A man with a vision. As he put it, “My mission is to work an orchestra until its responses are the maximum from the minimal gesture.” Levine wants people’s ears, not eyes; then again, he's no photogenic Ozawa...

I'd love to achieve the same effects with oil on canvas, given my allergy to some pigments. The fewer pigments, the better - but then again, the process of painting can be a dictatorship, however freeing the end-result may feel (or maybe it's the other way around), and the colors are the despots, loud and clear. Some painters thus try to emulate at their own risk. 

Levine hopes to use the BSO as an outlet for innovation while cultivating the classic repertory. From Verdi’s Don Carlos" to Schoenberg’s “Moses and Aron” and Stravinski’s “Rake’s Progress” to who knows what. The painter investigates.

As often is the case in my paintings, I don't care to capture much of the details - the freckles and the wrinkles. As long as you can tell it's not Adam Levine, whose portrait I'll gladly make too, admiring him no less.

Granted, Adam is no conductor in the classical music repertory. So what? He is no less talented, quite a composer in his own right, and whoever moves like Jagger...

Adam - if you ever read this, 'd love to take a couple of pictures - 5 minutes of your time just with my cell - and do your portrait. Title (unsurprisingly, to be confirmed): Levine But It's Not James..."

Medium

Oil on Canvas - 48''x60''

Signaletics

"Levine but It's Not Adam" is a 2012 painting by Frederic Marsanne, the leading artist in the house where he lives... Frederic has exhibited at MKL GALLERY in Somerville, MA, Ambassador Galleries in Soho, NY, and was chosen to exhibit in a juried show at the New Rochelle Art Association Annual in New Rochelle, NY.

Style, Themes, Techniques

James Levine's cues, their bouncy quality, his frumpy, curly hair, and portly manners - not exactly the Bernstein type – make the conductor a fascinating muse. His excess weight, sciatica, tremor in his left arm and leg, add to the mystique. If you look carefully, you'll hopefully see some of the musician's conditions in his portrait - not, because I don't care.

The question that fascinates me is the following. Has Levine used the Boston Symphony Orchestra as an outlet for innovation, thereby avoiding the path of least resistance, i.e., cultivating the great repertory? I salute James Levine's exhilarating performance of Berlioz’s epic opera Les Troyens, but hope he did champion the new and the rebellious.

His artistic achievements at the Met – the strong-selling Mozart’s Zauberflöte, Verdi’s "Don Carlos," Wagner’s "Tristan and Isolde,” are one part of the story. But was late Levine able to turn the Met into a company that fosters new and recent operas... It's more challenging to fill seats with Berg’s “Lulu” and “Wozzeck”, Schoenberg’s “Moses and Aron,” Stravinski’s “Rake’s Progress,” or Weill’s "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,” not to mention difficult works by Kirchner and Dallapiccola.

How much were Levine and his BSO able to create a unique legacy of introducing lasting works into the repertory, à la Serge Koussevitzky, who championed living composers like the American Aaron Copland? Did Levine ever embrace emerging regional composers like Lee Hyla, one of the most inventive composers around? Let's be bold: Did Levine ever move like Jagger the way Adam sings the Rolling Stones lead rocks the stage?





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