The Illinois Symphony Orchestra's season continues next weekend with Paris Impressions, a theatrical journey through turn-of-the-20th-century Paris with guest conductor Alastair Willis.
Willis spent five years as the ISO’s music director, departing in 2015. He now leads the South Bend Symphony Orchestra in Indiana and is principal conductor and artistic advisor for Florida’s Symphonia Boca Raton.
For his return to the ISO podium, Willis reunites with Prairie Fire Theatre artistic director Robert Mangialardi as Serge Diaghilev, an influential impresario charged with promoting Russian culture abroad. Willis portrays Jean-Luc Baton, a fictional character he developed 25 years ago when first crafting Paris Impressions for the Oregon Symphony. Baton and Diaghilev take audience members on a journey spanning from 1888 through 1920s Paris, centering on music commissioned for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes—the primary driver in a golden age for artistic innovation in dance, music and visual design.
“It was the hottest ticket in town,” Willis said on WGLT’s Sound Ideas. “I just love revisiting this time.”
Indeed, Diaghilev recruited the best and brightest artists working at the time: Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Leonide Massine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Pablo Picasso and Coco Chanel, to name a few. Among the inclusions in Paris Impressions are Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, Francis Poulenc’s Les Biches, César Franck’s Symphony in D and three ballets by Stravinsky: Petruska, Firebird and the Rite of Spring.
“These pieces have all been performed many times since their premieres, but this is a new way to invigorate, for the audience’s sake, a whole new experience,” said Mangialardi.
The 40-year period covered in Paris Impressions is one of intense social and political change. Diaghilev’s native country, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution. World War I broke out in Europe—stranding the Ballets Russes abroad in the Americas, where the United States was on the brink of the Great Depression.
“I think on one level, [Diaghilev] was responding to the anxiety of the times and seeking out artists that could express that,” Mangialardi said. “I sense he had a real need to break boundaries.”
The music changed as rapidly, with Paris as the epicenter of impressionism, then modernism, then neoclassicism.
“In classical music, they’re always looking for the next big piece, the next genre or the next way of doing things,” Mangialardi said. “It was a reaction to what was going on, but also purely an artistic need to go some place that hadn’t been reached before. And he certainly did it.”
A riot and a faun
Two ballets choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky [Diaghilev’s muse and lover] created a particular stir.
The Rite of Spring, with music by Stravinsky and stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich, descended into a near riot when it premiered in Paris in 1913 and was deemed a spectacular flop, closing after just a handful of performances. The ballet draws from pagan rituals sacrificing a young virgin to appease the god of spring, turning against classical aesthetics in both the music and movement. Stravinsky employs dissonance and polyrhythms; the dancers shuffle and stamp their feet with hunched torsos and knees turned in. Today, it’s considered a classic.
“Audiences came to Diaghilev’s premieres expecting something that was ‘wow,’ something extraordinary that they hadn’t expected,” said Willis. “A lot of the audience loved this new radicalization and a lot of them didn’t… There’s so much background with The Rite of Spring which helps us today which didn’t help those people in attendance at the premiere.”
Afternoon of a Faun was more subversively radical, set to Debussy’s seemingly bashful symphonic poem of the same name. Instead of a riot, a sneak peek ahead of the 1912 premiere incited silence.
“It was based on a very long and erotic poem,” said Willis. “Let’s be clear, this is a concert for the whole family… it’s just an extraordinary opportunity for us to put these pieces in historical context and not shy away from the times and what Paris was.”
A full endorsement
Willis isn’t the only previous ISO director returning for music director Taichi Fukumura’s inaugural season. Ken Lam leads the orchestra on Feb. 8, 2025.
“I have only the utmost respect and love for everybody in that organization,” Willis said. “It’s a full endorsement to have Ken and myself back to perform this year. We wish him all the best. I couldn’t be more thrilled and I can’t wait.”
The Illinois Symphony presents Paris Impressions on Saturday, Nov. 9, at Illinois State University's Center for Performing Arts, 351 S. School St., Normal. Tickets are $28-$63 at 309-438-2535 and ilsymphony.org.
