Tom Waits & William S. Burroughs & Robert Wilson & Wolfgang Wiens & Greg Cohen

Gelsenkirchen – Musiktheater im Revier

Premiere … 19. September 2020

Musikalische Leitung … Heribert Feckler

Regie … Astrid Griesbach

Regieassistenz … Kristina Franz

Dramaturgie … Olaf Roth

Bühne … Lisette Schürer

Bühnenbildassistenz … Julieth Villada

Kostüme&Puppen … Atif Mohammed Nour Hussein

Kostümdirektion … Karin Gottschalk

Gewandmeisterin (D) … Heike Nothers

Gewandmeister (D) … Christopher Brügel

Gewandmeister (H) … Andreas Meyer

Kostümassistenz … Linda Marlene Diehl

Masken … Saliha Hussein

Maske … Ann-Katrien Mai&Svenja Rhode&Claudia Kamp

Licht … Patrick Fuchs

Sound … Jörg Debbert

Requisite … Thorsten Böning

Devils Gang Member … Marharyta Pshenitsyna

*Klarinette, Basklarinette … Maximilian Breinich/ Claudia Sauter

*Fagott, Kontrafagott … Naoko Hamatsu/ David Schumacher

*Horn … Rodrigo Ortiz Serrano/ Sietske van Wieren

*Posaune … Holger Hansen/ Felice Tramontana

*Marimbaphon … Alexander Bock/ Torsten Müller

Schlagzeug … Oliver Kerstan/ Jürgen Pfeifer

Banjo, Mandoline … Klaus Bittner

*Kontrabass … Benjamin Kraner/ Gunnar Polansky

*Viola … Andreas Kosinski/ Christian Otto

Keyboard, Klavier … Peter Kattermann/ Martín Sotelo

*Mitglieder der Neuen Philharmonie Westfalen

“the forgotten killer”

The work of William S. Burroughs, once dangerous, is in danger itself.

“When Burroughs died (in August 1997) at the age of 83, such disturbing life details were little remembered. He had been commercially morphed into the grand old man of American freedom, the last living beatnik widow, a “cool” face in a Nike ad, and a backround vocalist on Tom Waits and Laurie Anderson records.

In reality, however, Burroughs was a dangerous man, not only an actual killer but a theoretician of crime and resistance, someone who strove to forge the unspeakable into an artform. With his passing, the American literary world lost more than the thin, neatly dressed Beat icon that the mainstream obituaris; it lost the last of its revolutionary modernists.”

by Vince Passaro (1998)

The Black Rider is a story about making a pact with the Devil, about what people will do when they want something too badly. This tale has a long history in German folklore, and obvious connections with the archetypal ambition of Faustus. Whoever sells his soul to the Demon Hunter receives seven Bullets, which will not fail to hit their desired mark. If the bargainer finds another victim for the Devil, he will receive a fresh supply of magic bullets; if not, his own life is forfeit.

As Der Freischütz, the story first found literary form in the Gespensterbuch, a collection of uncanny tales written and collected by August Apel and Friedrich Laun (1810), which became a central text of German Romanticism. In this version, the heroine, Agathe, is shot by the marksman, who is thereafter confined to a lunatic asylum.

The German composer, Carl Maria von Weber, first considered an opera based on the story in 1811, and returned to the idea in 1817. His completed work was triumphantly premiered in Berlin in 1821. Weber largely follows the story as set forth in the Gespensterbuch, especially in the demon-infested conjuring scene of the stone circle in the Wolf’s Glen (Wolfsschlucht). In Weber’s version, however, devine intervention prevents Wilhelm fom killing his bride and the opera ends with an exorcism.

The remarkable British author, Thomas de Quincey, wrote a version of the tale called The Fatal Marksman, which was published in Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations in 1823. It is this version, with the tale told in the Gespensterbuch, that provides the source material for The Black Rider.