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James Levine Conducts Final Opera at the Met as Its Music Director

James Levine is applauded on Saturday after his final performance in the orchestra pit as music director of the Metropolitan Opera.Credit...Richard Termine/The Metropolitan Opera

It was, in a very real sense, the end of an era: On Saturday afternoon, James Levine conducted his final performance in the orchestra pit as music director of the Metropolitan Opera, the position he was appointed to in 1976.

Emotion ran high throughout the performance, a matinee of Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” that was broadcast live on the radio on the last day of the Met’s season. Mr. Levine, 72, who agreed to retire at the end of the season for health reasons after struggling to retain his post, received lengthy applause before each act, including a prolonged standing ovation before the beginning of the third.

But after the final curtain, the weight of the moment was the most palpable. As the members of the cast came out for their curtain calls, they seemed more interested in applauding Mr. Levine than in receiving applause themselves. And the audience did not seem to want to let the afternoon end: The loudest cheers for Mr. Levine came after the singers had left the stage.

Many could not see the man they were cheering: Since Mr. Levine has conducted for the past few seasons from a motorized wheelchair, he could not make it from the pit to the stage in time for curtain calls. So once the first members of the audience rose to give him an ovation, Mr. Levine, still in the pit, could no longer be seen by most of the audience members who had been sitting in the orchestra seats.

But the ovation continued, and soon the cast returned and led the audience in a long, rhythmic clap.

Although it was Mr. Levine’s last performance as music director in the pit of the opera house he has helped shaped for decades, it will not be his last of the season. He will lead the Met Orchestra in concerts later this month at Carnegie Hall, culminating in a performance of excerpts from Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, a specialty of his. And he is scheduled to return to the Met next season to conduct several operas — as music director emeritus.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: James Levine’s Finale as Met Music Director. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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