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A Few Words About The Black Rider

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The Black Rider tale probably originates with a work of German romantic 
literature known as "Gespensterbuch," published in 1811. It is, however, a 
universal story - one of a vast body of sagas of men who make questionable 
arrangements with Satan. Most famously told in Carl Maria Von Weber's 
opera, Der Freischutz - which featured an altered (happy) ending - The 
Black Riders latest telling is a dark, symbolic and comedic affair.

The original story concerns a clerk, Wilhelm, who is in love with Katchen, 
daughter of the old forester, Kuno. Kuno wishes his daughter to marry a 
hunter. Katchen insists that a marksmanship contest be held to determine 
the finest hunter, hoping that Wilhelm might thus have a chance to win. 
Wilhelm, however cannot hit the broad side of a barn - until he is 
approached by a "dark horseman" called Pegleg. Pegleg arranges to give 
Wilhelm some "magic bullets," mysteriously guaranteed to hit anything 
Wilhelm aims at -except for one bullet, which Pegleg earmarks for his own 
purposes. Wilhelm wins the initial contest, and his bride's hand, but 
another shooting match is scheduled for their wedding day. Wilhelm asks 
Pegleg, who bears a suspicious resemblance to a leading citizen of the 
netherworld, for that last, unused bullet. Firing at a wooden dove, Wilhelm 
instead thanks to the cursed bullet - slays his bride.

In Freischutz, divine intervention prevents Wilhelm from killing his bride, 
and he gets off the hook with a stern warning about dealing with the devil. 
In the Robert Wilson-directed rendition of the story, Wilhelm ends up 
raving mad, another strait-jacketed lunatic in Hell's traveling carnival. 
The final scene is of Pegleg, sleek in a tuxedo singing a mock-sentimental 
song written by Waits, "The Last Rose of Summer" which beings, "I love the 
way/The tattered cloud/Go wind across the sky..."

Wilson's direction and, more obviously, Burroughs' libretto imbued The 
Black Rider with modern implications and allusions. At one point, the old 
forester, Kuno declares: "Some way he got into the magic bullets, and that 
leads straight to the devil's work, just like marijuana leads to heroin." 
Later, as Waits explained, "one of the actors comes out on stage, stands 
alone in a spotlight, talks about an argument between Hemingway and his 
agent - about selling out in Hollywood. Burroughs found some of the 
branches of the story, and let them grow into more metaphorical things in 
all of our lives every day that, in fact, are deals with the devil that 
we've made. What is cunning about those deals is that we're not aware we've 
made them. And when they come to fruitation, we are shocked and amazed."

Originally staged at a cost of $1.75 million in Hamburg, The Black Rider 
was, by all accounts, a remarkable spectacle. John Rockwell referred to it 
in the New York Times as a kind of cross of Cabaret, The Threepenny Opera, 
and The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Douglas Sutton wrote in the 
International Herald Tribune: "Wilson makes objects and actors appear, 
disappear, and reappear in pursing the story with tight choreographic 
precision." Jackie Wullschlager enthused in the Financial Times of London: 
"For three hours of graceful, cold artifice, they (the actors) look, act, 
and sound like figures from silent movies...Wilson turns children's 
drawings into three-dimensional monstrosities. Crooked chairs, two meters 
high, dangle at odd angles...pine trees are scissor cut-outs which collapse 
and grow again like cartoons...Waits, sarcastic ballads, full of folk and 
blues and rock, call back the scarred idealism and mock simplicity of Kurt 
Weill, while Burroughs' monosyllabic banality has here found the setting 
which makes it seem perfect."

Aside from Hamburg, The Black Rider was performed in Vienna, Paris, 
Barcelona, Genoa, Amsterdam and Berlin. The original production and cast 
will make their U.S. debut Nov. 20 at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in 
Brooklyn, New York, for a run of ten performances.