When the Metropolitan Opera announced last week that James Levine would step down as its music director at the end of the season to become music director emeritus, it said that he would continue to conduct most, but not all, of his previously announced engagements.
On Thursday the Met announced that it had engaged conductors to lead two of the coming engagements that Mr. Levine, who has been grappling with health problems, is withdrawing from. David Robertson, the music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, will conduct a May 22 concert of the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and Sebastian Weigle, the general music director of Frankfurt Opera, will conduct the company’s new production of Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier” next spring.
The May 22 concert led by Mr. Robertson will feature Renée Fleming singing Strauss lieder, including the Four Last Songs. (In addition, the program is to include “Don Juan” and “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” replacing the previously announced suite from “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” and “Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche.”)
The Met said Mr. Levine would conduct his other scheduled Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie: a May 19 concert featuring the pianist Evgeny Kissin playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and a May 26 concert of excerpts from Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” The Wagner concert will feature the soprano Christine Goerke and the tenor Stefan Vinke, who will replace Johan Botha, who has withdrawn from the program because of illness.
Next season’s new production of “Der Rosenkavalier,” directed by Robert Carsen, is to star Ms. Fleming, Elina Garanca, Erin Morley, Günther Groissböck and Matthew Polenzani. Mr. Weigle, who made his Met debut in 2000 conducting Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” will also lead the Met’s revival of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” next season.
Mr. Levine is still expected to conduct three revivals at the Met next season: Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri,” Verdi’s “Nabucco” and Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”