The saying at the Met for the past 40 years has been ‘what Jimmy wants, Jimmy gets’.

Last night Levine filed a $5.8 million lawsuit against the Metropolitan Opera, claiming unfair dismissal.

Money aside, he also wants a reinstatement of his reputation.

The Met has told him it will resist both demands.

So what’s really going on?

Levine’s past protestations of loyalty to the Met are being undermined by a hefty lawsuit that the company can ill afford. He would have known that before launching his claim. The Met, for its part, cannot afford for the case to come to court in case any of its officers is shown to have been aware of the conductor’s alleged misdemeanours.

So there will be a financial settlement, some way short of $5.8 million, funded by one or two board members.

And something else. Levine made it clear last night in his deposition that he felt betrayed by Peter Gelb, whom he accused of ‘a longstanding personal campaign to force Levine out of the Met.’

Levine helped put Gelb in his job 12 years ago. Now he’s signalling to the board that he won’t go quietly if Gelb keeps his seat. Gelb has just become a bargaining chip. Somebody is going to blink first.

David Edward Lewis, 58, a former chorus member of Opera Australia, has admitted past sex offences involving a 14-year-old girl. He left the company last year when police pressed charges.

It is reported that when the offences were made known to OA executives, they appointed a chaperone for the child but did not take action against the perpetrator. The company denies having any record of the incident.

Lewis will be sentenced later this year.

The Minnesota Orchestra has recorded the Fifth, Sixth and Second Symphonies on BIS since June 2016. The First and Fourth Symphonies will be recorded this month and June. Next season they will do Seventh and Tenth.

They seem to have the field to themselves at present.

A friend of the lavish opera donor has sent us this account:

Former opera sponsor Alberto Vilar, 77, was released from Fort Dix Correctional facility in New Jersey early Thursday and told to report at 2 pm to a halfway house in New York City to serve out the remaining six months of his ten-year term.

Vilar was arrested in May 2005 on charges of investor fraud and convicted in 2008 on all 12 counts. The judge in the case, Richard Sullivan, imposed a 9-year sentence on Vilar who, with his partner Gary Tanaka had run a successful financial company specializing in high-tech stocks. After losing the appeal, Sullivan imposed an additional year on the two defendants. Tanaka had been found guilty on three counts for which he received a five-year sentence.

The prosecution had charged the two men with having stolen $22 million dollars from some of their investors. After it became known that more than $45 million remained in the accounts of  their now defunct company, Amerindo Investment Advisors, Judge Sullivan appointed a receiver and charged him with identifying the investors and paying back their money. As of January 2018, court documents show, all investors have been made whole and were even paid interest for the 13 years they had no access to their funds.

Vivian Shevitz, the attorney who represents both men in the appeal said Thursday she had filed a writ of mandamus in which she asked the appeals court to replace Judge Sullivan and order a new trial.  Sources said some $10 million remains in the Amerindo accounts which Shevitz said the government wants to keep it all as forfeiture.

Expect to see him at the Met tonight, or very soon after. This will not please the board, who had his name removed from the balcony.

This is where I stayed last night in Liverpoool.

It’s a boutique b&b of exquisite design in a Georgian house, just around the corner from the Phil.

Best fresh breakfast and lovely owners.

It’s called 2 Blackburne Terrace.

From our diarist, Anthea Kreston:

The weeks are a blur. I get disoriented by the waves of intense work and stillness. Since Milan last week, we have played in Arnhem (a wonderful town an hour outside of Amsterdam), and returned to play twice at the Concertgebouw. Jason and the girls met up with me there, and we spent three fun and silly days on a houseboat together. It still floors me when I see myself in Quartet photos in front of halls, or on marquees. And to have the luxury of performing two back-to-back concerts of the same repertoire, in halls such as the Concertgebouw, is miraculous. How does this even happen?

We are in the midst of the sickness season – so many musicians are falling ill, playing concerts with fevers, stomach flu, coughing fits. For the past couple of months, I don’t think we have had even one, completely well performance – usually 2 or 3 of us are in different stages of the same illness, or one of us is transitioning into the next illness. Playing while stifling coughs, bringing tissue on stage to mop fevered brows, managing digestive issues, adjusting intonation to the person with ear infections. Having to wake someone who has fallen dead asleep during intermission. Just today, one of our members was forbidden to fly – ear infections which are too advanced to allow for pressurized air travel. So – instead of going to Spain, we are staying put, gathering our strength for Bremen and Frankfurt early next week, and for our upcoming tour to the USA. I am so paranoid of getting sick I won’t touch door handles, and wash my hands so much they are red and chapped. Echinacea, vitamin c, Zink, and these odd tasting intense glass vials I get from the organic pharmacy kind-of store.

Our concert repertoire, two late Mozarts, a Mendelssohn and a Bartok, are simply what we play on stage. In between the concerts, we are preparing the Shostakovich Piano Quintet (our recording for Warner begins soon – Shostakovich 5 and 7 Quartets and the Quintet with Elisabeth Leonskaja, the formidable Russian pianist). We play many times together with Liza in preparation for the recording – playing the Dvorak Piano Quintet to round out the program. Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna – and looking at her schedule right now on her website, it is a wonder to behold – concertos from Ireland to Shanghai, Schubert Sonata Cycle in Tokyo, Beethoven Sonatas in Spain – it is cram-packed. How does she do it?

In addition, our upcoming USA tour has totally different repertoire – these pieces we have to bring with us on tour in Europe, and fit them, little by little, into our sound-check rehearsals. A couple of Schumanns, Beethoven. We hit the ground running when we get there – there isn’t any buffer – Princeton, Library of Congress, Carnegie – a couple of mid-western concerts, Houston, then onto California. The concerts are back-to-back, so there will be early mornings, long travel each day, and interviews are jammed between flights and hotel.

When I saw the Emersons the other month, I prepared “emergency wellness packs” for them. Small, reusable shopping bags filled with fizzy vitamin drinks, chewable antacid, anti-stress tea, power-immunity drops, organic dark chocolate. They told me later that their tour was completely without illness – maybe thanks to those little health bags.

So – I am practising, preparing, napping, and, because of the cancellation, taking my youngest daughter (age six) on a spontaneous three-day trip to Helsinki tomorrow (with my violin). Should be fun!

The Bulgarian soprano will be the focal point of Barenboim’s Staatsoper next season, singing Cherubini’s heroine for the first time, it was announced yesterday.

The new intendant Matthias Schulz, who succeeds Jurgen Flimm next month, is also keen on having a Baroque mini-season to offset the diva dementia.

The estimable David Hyslop, former president of the Minnesota Orchestra, St Louis Symphony and others, has emerged from two months rest after cervical disc surgery to move into a new position as interim president and CEO of the Omaha Symphony.

David, 75, will start work in May.

Among ten short-term interim posts he has headed orchestras in Dallas, Louisville, and Stockton, Calif., and served as strategic consultant to the Santa Fe Opera and Amarillo Symphony, putting them back on track.

What a pro.

The Metopolitan Opera last night issued an angry rebuttal of a lawsuit by its former music director, claiming $5.8 million for unfair dismissal.

Its lawyer, Bettina B. Plevan, said: ‘The Met terminated Mr Levine’s contract on March 12 following an in-depth investigation that uncovered credible and corroborated evidence of sexual misconduct at the Met, as well as earlier. It is shocking that Mr Levine has refused to accept responsibility for his actions, and has today instead decided to lash out at the Met with a suit riddled with untruths.’

The bellicose language in this statement – ‘shocking’, ‘lash out’, ‘untruths’ – reads as much as an indication of corporate anxiety as of determination to fight. Nobody wants this case to come to court.

One of Levine’s two lawyers, Elkan Abramowitz, has acted in the past for Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen. Levine accuses Peter Gelb of scheming for at least three years to remove him. This is getting personal.

More from the Met statement: ‘During the course of the investigation, Mr. Levine was offered numerous opportunities to be interviewed, beginning in December. It was only when the investigation was wrapping up, upon realization that termination was imminent, that he agreed to be interviewed, but on impossible terms, asking that the identity of his accusers, who had been promised anonymity, be disclosed.’