NEW YORK | Fri Oct 12, 2012 7:33pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine will return to the conducting podium in May 2013 - initially in a wheelchair - after a fall more than a year ago that left him partially paralyzed, the New York opera house said on Friday.

Levine, 69, who has been the Met's music director since 1976, will conduct the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in May 2013, before leading three operas during the Met's 2013-14 season, the Met said in a statement.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb called Levine's return to conducting "great news for opera lovers throughout the world," while Levine said: "I'm looking forward more than I can say to getting back to work."

Levine has been in long-term rehabilitation since injuring his spine in a fall while on vacation in August 2011 that required surgery and left him partially paralyzed.

While his upper body strength has returned, his injuries have left him temporarily unable to walk.

The Met said that for the time being, he will conduct from a motorized wheelchair. In anticipation of Levine's return, the Met's technical department is designing customized, elevating podiums that will be utilized on the Carnegie Hall stage and in the Met's orchestra pit.

Levine referred to the "long healing process" from his spine injury, but said he feels better with each passing day.

For the 2013-14 season, Levine is scheduled to conduct a new production of Verdi's "Falstaff" and revivals of Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" and Berg's "Wozzeck."

The Met said that in recent weeks, Levine has gradually been taking on more of his duties as music director, including coaching members of the organization's young artist development program and holding artistic planning sessions.

His physician, Dr. Len Horovitz, who coordinates his medical team, said Levine was "an inspirational case, whose return to conducting will be a result of remarkable perseverance and hard work."

Levine made his debut with the company in 1971 and has conducted 2,441 performances there, more than anyone in the company's 129-year history. His last performance as a conductor was of Wagner's "Die Walküre" on May 14, 2011.

(Reporting By Ellen Freilich; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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Author J.K Rowling poses for photos with her certificate after being presented with the Freedom of the City of London, at Mansion House, central London May 8, 2012.

NEW YORK/LONDON | Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:09pm EDT

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Harry's still finished, but don't rule out any return to the Potter world.

Although J.K. Rowling's first novel tailored for adults is being released this week, she says her next book will likely be a children's book, and in the future she may pen a story related to the Harry Potter universe.

"I think it very likely that the next thing I publish will be for kids. I have a children's book that I really like, it's for slightly younger children than the Potter books," Rowling told the BBC in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday.

In one of a handful of appearances to promote "The Casual Vacancy," which hits bookstores worldwide on Thursday, Rowling told the BBC: "Truly, where Harry's story is concerned, I'm done.

Yet the 47-year-old best-selling British author did not rule out a Potter spin-off, while she was adamant it would never be for commercial reasons. The seven "Harry Potter" books have sold more than 450 million books worldwide.

"I have always left the door ajar because I'm not that cruel. If I had a fabulous idea that came out of that world, because I loved writing it, I would do it," she told the BBC.

"But I've got to have a great idea, I don't want to go mechanically into that world and pick up odds and ends and glue them together and say 'Here we go, we can sell this'. It would make a mockery of what those books were to me."

Were that great idea to come, she said: "I probably would do it. I'm very averse to the prequel/sequel idea. I've never seen it work well in either literature or film. That's a personal preference."

Rowling, who started her writing career as a financially struggling, single mother, said while there was clearly "an appetite for eight, nine, ten," Potter novels, she knew she only had enough plot for seven books about Harry's magical adventures.

"To go further would have been money for old rope. Couldn't do it. And that's largely why I slapped on that epilogue (in the final "Harry Potter" novel). (It) says he's leading a quiet life, and he's earned it. He's done," she said of the boy wizard.

POTTER DIRECTOR'S CUT, TEEN OCD

Rowling said she would have liked more time to work on some of the books.

"I had to write on the run and there were times when it was really tough. And I read them, and I think 'Oh God, maybe I'll go back and do a director's cut". I don't know," she said in BBC interview.

"But you know what?" she added. "I'm proud I was writing under the conditions under which I was writing. No one will ever know how tough it was at times."

In a separate interview with ABC's "Nightline", Rowling revealed that she had signs of obsessive-compulsive behavior when she was a teenager, and that one of the characters in "The Casual Vacancy" was drawn from her own experiences.

"These are things I know from the inside," she said in the interview, some of which was aired on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "When I was in my teens, I had issues with OCD ... checking things, it's very common, double checking, triple checking, it's an anxiety disorder."

Rowling has spoken openly in the past about dealing with depression, which she estimated she had not had to deal with for more than a decade.

She credited Harry Potter with helping. "Forget the money," she said; it gave her self-respect. "Harry gave me a job that I loved to do more than anything else," she told ABC.

(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in London, editing by Jill Serjeant and Gunna Dickson)

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* H1 sales 3.06 bln eur, up 2.6 pct

* H1 adj EBIT up 11.6 percent to 390 mln

* Sees 2012 sales up 3 pct

* Says China to return to profit ahead of schedule

* Shares rise 5 pct, top Dax gainer

FRANKFURT, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Beiersdorf, the maker of Nivea skin care products, said it would return to profit in China a year earlier than scheduled after a haircare buy failed to deliver while announcing a slightly disappointing outlook for 2012 sales growth of 3 percent.

Like rivals Henkel and Unilever, Beiersdorf on Thursday said emerging markets had helped mitigate a 4 percent fall in second-quarter sales at its main consumer products division in western Europe.

But its new forecast for 2012 sales growth of 3 percent fell short of the average expectations for growth of 5 percent, according to a Reuters poll.

In China, Beiersdorf had fallen behind rivals' expansion and last year took a 140 million euro ($172 million) writedown and replaced management.

"We see a much improved situation in China and we are approaching breakeven in the foreseeable future," new Chief Executive Stefan Heidenreich told analysts.

Its shares were up 4.20 percent at 55.80 euros at 1027 GMT, the top gainer on the Dax index of leading German shares .

Beiersdorf shares already trade at a premium because of speculation the controlling Herz family could sell out to Procter & Gamble, and have a price to forward earnings ratio of 24.28. That compares with 19.31 for L'Oreal, 15.3 for Henkel, and 14.13 for Reckitt Benckiser.

"The specified outlook for sales growth is below consensus for both the Consumer and the Tesa (adhesives) division and may require a downward revision of consensus," said DZ Bank analyst Thomas Maul.

Heidenreich admitted Beiersdorf, which also makes Labello lip balm and La Prairie luxury skin creams, had fallen behind in terms of innovative creams and lotions and vowed to bring more new products to the market.

"The innovation did not come out in the previous year and that is why we are not growing enough," Heidenreich said. "The pipeline looks a lot better for 2013, I believe some real hits will come through."

Procter & Gamble, the world's largest household products maker, warned on profits after failing to deliver enough new products and cost cuts to make up for weak demand in Europe, the United States and China.

Beiersdorf said on Thursday that first-half sales rose 2.6 percent to 3.06 billion euros and adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose 11.6 percent to 390 million.

It forecast a 2012 operating margin of 12 percent, compared with a previous range of between 11 and 12 percent.

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LONDON | Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:21pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Auctioneer Christie's should return the sum of 1.5 million pounds ($2.4 million) paid by a wealthy Russian art collector for a painting that was probably fake, a High Court judge ruled on Friday.

Mr Justice Newey concluded that the painting, "Odalisque," which shows a nude woman asleep on a bed, was probably not painted by Boris Kustodiev, a Russian artist who has been compared with English painter L.S. Lowry.

The judge ruled that Christie's had not been negligent, but should return the money paid for the work to Avrora Fine Arts Investment, a firm run by Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg, the Press Association reported.

"It follows that Avrora is entitled to cancel its purchase of the painting and recover the money it paid," the judge said.

Kustodiev, who lived from 1878 to 1927, was much better known in Russia than outside, the judge said, adding one art expert had suggested Kustodiev was "to the Russians what Lawrence Stephen Lowry is to the English in terms of affection in which he is held".

Vekselberg's company bought the painting at a Christie's auction in London in 2005.

The work had been described in the sale catalogue as "one of the best examples of Kustodiev's idea of the provincial merchant class", and displayed the inscription "B. Kustodiev - 1919".

But Avrora took legal action against Christie's when an art dealer expressed doubts that the painting was genuine.

An expert called by Christie's thought the painting was authentic, although "not one of Kustodiev's best works".

Christie's lawyers insisted that Odalisque was authentic and the auction house could not be blamed if the painting was no masterpiece.

(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian; editing by Steve Addison)

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