'American Masters': Maestro James Levine

James Levine is music director of the Metropolitan Opera, but this wider-angle portrait also looks at his youth as a piano prodigy in Cincinnati and his work with other great musical figures, most notably tenor Plácido Domingo. You'll see Levine in his roles as conductor, teacher and masterful communicator. Says he: "Music is essential like air, and food and like sleeping . . . breathing." Levine built the Met orchestra into one of the world's premiere ensembles, on equal footing with his next-door neighbors at Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic.

MY SAY Two opera landmarks approach -- Levine's 40th anniversary conducting his first performance at the Met ("Tosca"); and his 68th birthday. For Levine lovers -- hereafter referred to as Leviniacs -- the latter is a sober reminder of his diminishing health, which recently forced him to bow out as musical director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and may curtail his directorship at the Met. These are worrisome times for Leviniacs, and so this warm, gentle and informative portrait arrives at a perfect moment in this transcendent career.

But opera lovers are nothing if not nit-pickers and they will find nits to pick here. Why all the foolish emphasis on Beethoven's Fifth, they'll squawk, but barely a bar or two of Wagner? (In fact, I think I counted eight bars.) Levine is one of the four or five greatest interpreters of Wagner since (well) Wagner. Ringnuts -- obsessive fans who live for the Ring -- cherish Levine's Ring Cycle like Deadheads used to cherish Jerry Garcia's guitar solos. As compensation, there are some wonderful moments with Levine and Domingo, along with their "Otello" and "Simon Boccanegra"; the latter recently aired on "Great Performances."

BOTTOM LINE Pure joy, from the first second to the last, but not long enough, complete enough, or journalistically up-to-date enough. How is "Jimmy's" health? -- a few million Leviniacs are anxiously wondering right now. Well?

GRADE A-