The cost of excellence

There will be Schoenberg, and lots of it. Get ready for a world premiere from Elliott Carter, too. James Levine is back at Symphony Hall, and with him returns the combination of crowd-pleasing (Beethoven, Berlioz) and demanding -- some would say difficult -- programming that marked his first year as the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music director. Stay away if you want to. Or come and hear what virtually all the critics, from New York to Los Angeles, have called the rebirth of the BSO.

But such a renaissance doesn't come cheap. Knowing that they would work hard with Levine, the players have negotiated to be paid more when the maestro's in town. Knowing that artistic ambitions don't always translate into ticket sales, the BSO's board has established a special $40 million endowment fund -- an unprecedented move in the symphony world -- to support Levine's work.

''It's the cost of not just Levine, it's the cost of a commitment to take an incredibly talented orchestra and somehow, even starting from a high level, building on that," says Mark Volpe, the BSO's managing director. ''We're rehearsing longer. We're rehearsing more. And in the time we're using, it's really intense work."

The BSO players knew what they were getting into. That's why they negotiated what's called the ''Levine Premium" before the maestro's first season. They get an extra $220 for each of the music director's 12 weeks. With about 100 players in the BSO and including other expenses, the total adds up to roughly $278,000 for the season.

And there are other costs. Levine's penchant for mammoth productions -- Mahler's Eighth Symphony and Wagner's ''The Flying Dutchman" last season, Beethoven's ''Missa Solemnis" and Schoenberg's ''Gurrelieder" this season -- cuts into the BSO's profits. Larger pieces often require the hiring of additional musicians and the creation of stage extensions to accommodate more players, a chorus, and a slate of singers, meaning prime seats up front are lost. The BSO has to pay the artistic fees of the big-name opera stars Levine has lined up. And travel costs for high-profile performances add up, too.

Volpe says that it costs approximately $1.5 million more each year to run the BSO than it did before Levine arrived.

Meanwhile, Levine has not been a boon for the box office. Subscription renewals are down slightly from this time last year, dipping from 84 to 80 percent. Volpe says he is encouraged by increases in single ticket sales, however, and that because ticket-buying patterns have changed in recent years, the most important figures will come at the end of the season. That's when the BSO will know exactly how many people have come to hear Levine's work.

''My sense is the hot concerts are the hot concerts -- the French stuff, the Beethoven," says Volpe. ''The programs that have, frankly, a more challenging repertoire, he does well, but they don't necessarily sell out. We have to keep our financial equilibrium. But we're not driven by having to pay dividends to shareholders. The dividends are, hopefully, artistic."

An untested idea
The BSO can afford to take risks. It is the richest orchestra in America, with a standard endowment of $300 million and a business model -- drawing on the beloved brands and significant revenues of the Boston Pops and Tanglewood Music Center -- that makes it the envy of other symphonic organizations.

But the BSO's leaders say they can't afford to be cocky: To plan for the future, they need to balance their budget. And that isn't always easy. Two years ago, the BSO finished with a $600,000 deficit. The numbers could be similar for the fiscal year that ended last month, Volpe says. He blames the deficit largely on poor weather at Tanglewood and a decrease in revenue from the spring Pops season.

But Levine's programming has brought added costs. Which is why, midway through Levine's first season, then-BSO board chairman Peter Brooke proposed an idea untested in the symphony world. What if the BSO came up with a separate endowment to help pay for Levine's programming? Brooke called it the Artistic Initiative Fund.

''It's a challenge to support all of James Levine's initiatives, and not inexpensive," says Brooke. ''[Levine] wants to showcase the symphony, and we've agreed this is exactly what he should do. But of course it comes with a financial challenge."

The goal for the endowment fund is $40 million. Brooke, whose term as board chairman ended this month, said that the BSO has already raised more than half of that sum.

It is standard in the symphony world to endow positions and sponsor particular concerts. It is not to create endowments for programming.

''It's a pretty revolutionary concept," says Henry Fogel, president and CEO of the American Symphony Orchestra League and the former president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. ''It tells me that the BSO is extremely well focused on its mission and not afraid to encourage its artistic director to take risks. If I were still managing an orchestra, it would make me jealous."

Adapting to changes
Levine's first season went well, Brooke says. Though Brooke isn't a huge fan of contemporary music, he expresses appreciation for the maestro's attempts to stretch people's tastes and knowledge. He describes Levine as a savvy programmer who understands how to bring people into Symphony Hall. So while Levine has presented works by modern composers who are unfamiliar to most, he's also led the orchestra through pieces many would consider crowd-pleasing, including Berlioz's ''Romeo et Juliette." Programs have paired demanding works (Edgard Varese's ''Ameriques") with more accessible ones (Gershwin's ''An American in Paris").

''My intellectual friends are absolutely enthralled by these new challenges," says Brooke. ''The sort of people who like to go for comfort and not be challenged have a problem."

Some problems did arise within the orchestra because of Levine's complicated arrangement as musical leader of both the BSO and the Metropolitan Opera, players and management say. Already committed to certain Met productions, Levine was not able to spread out his visits across the calendar as much as he or the players would have liked. That meant that Levine's programs -- marked by five, six, even seven rehearsals -- often ran one after another instead of being broken up by guest conductors, some of whom held only three rehearsals per week.

By the end of last season, some string players were complaining to Levine and the BSO's management of fatigue. Other players were asking Levine, through their representatives, to shorten some upcoming concerts. He agreed, cutting a 16-minute Bach prelude from a March program and a pair of overtures from a summer Brahms program at Tanglewood.

This year, though, the pace of the season is better, says Fenwick Smith, a flute player and chairman of the Player Committee. And the orchestra knows more of what's expected. ''Last year, there were a number of changes that were disruptive to people," Smith says. ''The same thing will be happening this year, but I think people tend to accommodate to changes over time. And certainly the spreading of the work over Levine's weeks will help."

Still, the impact could be felt during labor negotiations between the orchestra's players and management. The players have a four-year contract that expires next September.

Smith says that players will consider whether they should get raises for their work with Levine. They will discuss whether the BSO needs to add more players to give existing orchestra members more time off.

''During this contract negotiation, no one can predict what will come out the other end," Smith says. ''Will we continue in the same vein or go back to the scheduling and programming pre-Levine? I doubt that will happen, but we may end up somewhere in between."

There are, he notes, potential stress points within the season. At the end of December, he points to a Levine program with four pieces commissioned over the years by the BSO, ranging from Stravinsky's ''Symphony of Psalms" to Carter's ''Boston Concerto."

''It has his name written all over it," says Smith. ''No one else would dare."

When he says this, Smithdoesn't sound at all discouraged.

''We're going into this new season in good shape," he says. ''We'll rise to the occasion."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.