James Levine is wiped off Met Opera Radio

We hear that the 24×7 “Met Opera Radio” channel on the North American Sirius XM satellite network has removed all recordings conducted by James Levine.

This means the 40 years of broadcasts while Levine was music director has been silenced.

The Levine operas have been replaced with full-length broadcast recordings from the 1930s, 1940s, and especially 1950s with often dubious technical quality despite great singers.

Now everyone knows that Levine and the Met are only speaking through lawyers these day, but this vindictive editing of institutional history is reminiscent of Stalin at his worst, when Trotsky and other undesirables were whited out of party pictures.

The radio channel is emasculated so Peter Gelb can sleep easy at night.

Ridiculous.