Journalism's unpredictable demands can occasionally fray the nerves of the staunches! individuals, but TIME'S staffers have learned to take the unexpected in stride. Boston Bureau Chief Barry Hillenbrand was lunching in "your above-average greasy spoon" in Boston's Back Bay when he learned by phone that he had been assigned to report a cover story on James Levine, the internationally acclaimed music director of New York City's Metropolitan Opera. Levine was 4,000 miles away in Austria conducting at the Salzburg festival. Could Hillenbrand, who had reported major TIME stories on such subjects as Gelsey Kirkland and Bobby Fischer, leave immediately? He departed the next day, only to confront another element of the unexpected when he landed. "Arriving in Salzburg at the height of the festival without a hotel reservation," says Hillenbrand, "is like arriving at the Super Bowl without a ticket."

Meeting Levine also provided a surprise, but of a more welcome kind. Says Hillenbrand: "He was a good interview. He talked freely, which is not always the case with artists and musicians, who frequently are incapable of explaining how they work." Midwesterners Hillenbrand, who grew up in Chicago, and Levine, who is from Cincinnati, also found that they were on the same wave length. Says Hillenbrand: "He'd say things like 'You know what I mean,' and I would understand."

For three weeks, much of Hillenbrand's interviewing occurred during lunches in Salzburg and dinners in Bayreuth, where Levine conducted Parsifal. "We shared caviar on the Concorde back to New York and dined in Greenwich Village and Soho," recalls Hillenbrand. "I did so much interviewing over food that my tape recorder was covered with grease stains." He found Levine "a man of few pretensions, who is still very much a Midwesterner: open, direct, optimistic."

To write the story, TIME Music Critic Michael Walsh, who has given Levine mixed reviews in the past, also traveled to Austria, heard him at the Met and listened for nearly 40 hours to his records. Says Walsh: "Sometimes I disagreed with his approach to certain pieces. This time I rethought his aesthetic. I set aside my feelings about the way he conducted and listened to what he was trying to do. I found that a valuable experience." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.