''I Shardana'' is a 1949 opera by Sardinian composer

Ennio Porrino Ennio Porrino (20 January 1910 – 25 September 1959) was an Italian composer and teacher. Amongst his compositions were orchestral works, an oratorio and several operas and ballets. His best known work is the symphonic poem ''Sardegna'', a tri ...

, which was premiered in 1959 at the

Teatro San Carlo The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is a historic opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and a ...

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

under Gastone Limarilli and Piero Guelfi. The libretto by the composer was inspired by Bronze Age stone towers, megalithic nuraghes, found across

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

Recording

*DVD Button Marrocu, Palomba, Ledda; Signorini, Villari, Ruggeri, Balzani, Mangione; Orchestra and Chorus of Fondazione Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Bramall. Production: Livermore. Dynamic 37683, 114 mins., subtitled

Opera News ''Opera News'' was an American classical music magazine. It was published from 1936 to 2023 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild—a non-profit organization, located at Lincoln Center, that was founded to promote opera and support the Metropolitan ...

br> I Shardana
TEATRO LIRICO di Cagliari, where this world-premiere recording of Ennio Porrino's 1949 I Shardana was filmed, was a most appropriate venue: Porrino was born in Cagliari, the capitol of Sardinia, and his opera is an imaginative resurrection of the island's ancient culture. Taking as his inspiration the seven thousand megalithic nuraghes scattered across Sardinia, Porrino fashioned a mythic tale of the Bronze Age Nuragic people who built these mysterious stone structures,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shardana Operas 1959 operas Italian-language operas