The Loneliest Badger
in the World

When faced with the likes of Boulez's call to "bomb the opera houses" or Lachemann's deconstruction - nay, destruction - of the symphonic tradition, how is one to read opera in this day and age? At the point of schism between Wagner and Nietzsche, two paths emerge. The first is to travel the road of the gesamtkunstwerk to the edge of the cliff where Wagner leaves everything dangling in the harmonic ambiguity of the Tristan chord. The second is to follow Nietzsche's long shadow over post-structuralism, taking him up on the invitation he bestows at the end of The Birth of Tragedy, to reject the formal concerns of unanimity in order to embrace a formalism of discontinuity and difference.

It is down this second path that The Loneliest Badger will be found.

The Loneliest Badger is based upon a libretto by Glen Johnson, which he developed from a short story of his by the same name. It details the story of Larry, a badger longing for companionship, and explores the themes of the nature of relationships, rural-urban dialectics, modern pathology and state imposed socialization of citizenry.

There are, of course, historical precedents here, probably the most obvious being the use of badgers in operatic works (perhaps most notable being Act II of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen) and the pop culture link between animation and opera/"classical music" (Warner Bros. Merry Melodies and Looney Tunes, Disney's Silly Symphonies and Fantasia).

Special thanks to Cam Woykin and to Videopool's New Media Fund for making this project considerably less difficult to accomplish. We hope to release a complete CD with accompanying booklet in January of 2011.

Garth Hardy

Garth wrote the score for the Loneliest Badger and is responsible for the recording of all the music.

Garth is a cultural producer living and working in Winnipeg. He has studied composition with Rolf Boon, Ian Crutchley and Michael Matthews. He has been a member of the Industrial Workers of the World since 1998. As well as being engaged in the arts and culture industry and fighting the class war, he also pursues the yeoman task of reclaiming urban roadways for non-petroleum based transportation.

Garth (BFA - Multidisciplinary University of Lethbridge; MMUS - Composition, University of Manitoba) lives and works in Winnipeg, MB.

His exhibitions, performances and installations include: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - a live scoring, Cinematheque, Winnipeg, MB. 2008. Creating New Horizons, Lecture, Grande Prairie Regional College, Grande Prairie, AB. 2007. aphorism on the labour theory of value/a situ cartography of vancouver, Installation, GroundSwell, Winnipeg, MB. 2007. DigShift Score for video installation by Roewan Crowe, aceartinc, Winnipeg, MB.2007. Aelita: Queen of Mars - a live scoring, Cinematheque, Winnipeg, MB. 2007. Alkimiya (Cello Duet No.1), Recital, University of Ottawa Cello Ensemble, Ottawa ON. 2007. The Flaming Trolleys: Winnipeg's Radical Marching Band - performance and arranging, Winnipeg, MB. 2007. Recital, a situ cartography of winnipeg, Installation. VideoPool Media Arts Centre, Winnipeg MB. 2007. _and I thought guy debord was dead: a situ cartography of winnipeg, Exhibition. Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Winnipeg MB. 2007. Battleship Potemkin - a live scoring, MayWorks: A Festival of Labour and the Arts, Winnipeg MB. 2006. Broadcast, a situ cartography of winnipeg (excerpt. i and ii), PAVED New Media and CFCR FM, Saskatoon SK. 2006. Graphien, Finalist, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra's National Emerging Composer Workshop, Thunder Bay ON. 2004. Thesis Recital, School of Music - University of Manitoba, Winnipeg MB. 2004. Alkimiya (Cello Duet No.1), Birkenhead Priory Summer Concert Series, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK. 2003.

Glen Johnson

Glen wrote the libretto for The Loneliest Badger based on his short story of the same name.

Glen (BA University of Winnipeg) lives and works in Winnipeg, MB.

Glen has exhibited and performed at the Annex Gallery, Mount Saint Vincent University, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Platform Centre, aceartinc, Gallery 1C03 and the National Gallery of Canada.

Glen has collaborated with Garth Hardy on a number of projects, notably:
Whine (Park Theatre, July 2008), Understruck (aceartinc. May 2009), and The Rock n' Roll Wake (Platform, February 2010).

Contact us at: info@loneliestbadger.com