Germany has had a problem with its artistic expressions. The second world war created damaging associations. In a recent article, German musician Blixa Bargeld of the band Einsterzend Neaubauten said "That culture which existed before the war is rightly forbidden to us, because of what it lead to--or at best, did not prevent. The point I am trying to make is that the German tradition is gone. We hate our culture and our language. We cannot redeem that tradition." William Burroughs, Tom Waits, and Robert Wilson have tapped into that tradition, pulled out two centuries worth of art, and created the opera "The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets". First premiered in Germany in 1990 by the Thalia Theater of Hamburg, Germany, "The Black Rider" draws initially from the story "Der Freischutz", written by August Apel and Friedrich Laun in 1810, based on a 17th century ghost story about a young couple in love and to win over the fiancee's heart, the young man must prove himself as a capable marksmen. A feat the clerk can only succeed with the help of some magic bullets, crafted and tested by the devil himself. Within several years "Der Freischuts" was turned into an opera by the romantic German composer Baron Karl Maria Von Weber.

The recent version, which was first performed in the states at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during Thanksgiving day weekend, was started when Robert Wilson discovered the story and wanted to do an adaptation of it. Robert Wilson started out as a choreographer, painter and set designer. In his work, though, these jobs are really one and the same, because either the people in most of his performances seem like mobile props (especially when they are physically involved with the set, carrying large puppets and such) or his actual sets and use of lights become the center of action. Wilson's works are often long and very slow moving, but his visuals work very well with music. Usually he comes up with the base idea, maybe some sketches and the musicians and he build from that idea. He has worked with artists ranging from David Byrne to Hans Peter Kuhn. His most famous opera Einstein on the Beach, with music by Philip Glass. This five hour piece, which premiered in 1976, turned musical theater and opera on their heads and gave rise to other works that would seem not to fit in the genre of opera, such as The Cave by Steve Reich and Beryl Kerot, Njinga the Queen King by Ione and Pauline Oliveros,(last minute note..someone on post-classical brought Oliveros up and i forgot to mention this) and The Black Rider itself. To provide music and lyrics for The Black Rider, Robert Wilson picked Tom Waits who had done the music to the Jim Jarmusch films Down By Law and Mystery Train. This time he didn't just add music to the visuals, but created much of the story with his lyrics. To flesh it out, Wilson and Waits invited author William Burroughs to write the libretto, adding humor, autobiographical in jokes, and helping along the analogy of the magic bullets and drugs.

Using Der Freischuts as a starting point, they created an opera that draws from German culture throughout. When, in the prologue, the character of Pegleg presents the Company, they each walk out with a distinct musical phrasing and physical gesture. These gestures and musical passages act sort of like Wagnerian leit motifs as they appear throughout the performance. This modern type of musical theater doesn't always stress a linear narrative, or the importance of any one thing over the other. This is shown in scenes where the characters' movements, somewhere between dance and elaborate slapstick; through the set and settings, which frame and become part of the picture; and the music, which isn't stressed as being the main attraction. These features have often been referred to as modern examples of Wagner's gesamtkunstwerk. The performance makes constant references to German Romantic Operas, from Weber to Wagner, not only in the themes and techniques, but also in musical quotes. The opera mixes this with aspects of the performance borrowed from later German art, though seemingly only pre-war. The jagged bizarre sets, dream sequences, stark lighting and chiaroscuro make-up on the actors reminds one immediately of German Expressionism and Surrealism. The set and the make up may have been borrowed from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the classic German silent film. When, after the introductions, Pegleg walks across the stage, dressed all in black, with tails on his jacket and slicked back hair and white make up and sings "Come on along with the Black Rider, we'll have a gay old time," you can see Joel Gray, the master of ceremonies of the play Cabaret introducing his dancing girls to a club full of people ignoring the Nazi's eminent rise to power.

The Black Rider was a fascinating event. Considering the unorthodoxy of Tom Waits songs and orchestration for the small ensemble of assorted instruments ranging from metal saw to e-mu emax sampler. The music sounded like a cabaret being presented in a southern juke parlor. The singing ranged form the aforementioned cabaret to operatic. The texts, the story and the action were a puzzle, the pieces being the actions of the main characters, their dreams, fragments of even older fairy tales and seemingly unrelated monologues. This made the first couple of scenes a little difficult to follow, but constant referral to the synopsis provided, helped quite a bit. (The play was mostly in German except for random words). Luckily, the opera had supertitles, a large rectangular screen above the stage that provided the audience with the translated dialogue, which was obviously helpful but sometimes distracting from the action. The sets were mostly abstract, using colorful lights and neon lights shining on and surrounded by harsh (i have no idea what belonged here, make up your own sequitor) magical bullets that lead straight to the Devil's work ("just like marywanna leads to heroin," in Burroughs' words). The humor in this dark tale comes from its ironies and absurd situations. When Wilhelm, the young lover, goes out hunting with the magic bullets and is successful, he fills the house of his lover, Käthchen, with literally dozens of bloody dead animal carcasses. When Käthchen's father, Bertram, sees the bloody mess, he's so happy with Wilhelm that he's willing to let Käthchen marry him and at this point the three of them, Bertram, his wife and Käthchen's maid all put themselves in the skin of the carcasses and sing a merry song while dancing. Later, Käthchen's uncle speaks a lengthy monologue in English about Earnest Hemmingway's selling of the rights to "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" to a Hollywood producer. This movie deal is seen as a faustian bargain. Wilhelm made a pact with the devil to get his magic bullets (at a neon crossroads, no less) and this won the acceptance of his new father's love, but of course, also caused tragedy.

Robert Wilson's abstract staging and character directions are impossible to date. There are no "historic" buildings in the Black Rider, just squares and lights. The costumes were the same, belonging to no period one would recognize. The brilliant music, which mixes cabaret with jug band blues, and the text, which makes references to the twentieth century even though the story seems considerably older, gives "The Black Rider" a timeless quality, covering timeless themes, mainly dependence, whether on drugs, on other people's acceptance, magic bullets, or the devil. These themes are presented beautifully through the careful synchronization of music, text, movement, and space.

SDS0564@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu

February 18, 1994