Porrino: I Shardana - Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (2013) [Blu-ray]

When we examine the score of I Shardana by Ennio Porrino, we easily understand what a central role this opera played in the artistic development of the composer. The fi rst drafts of it date
from 1934-35, but the work only debuted years later, on 21st March 1959, at the San Carlo theatre in Naples, with its final title of I Shardana and Porrino himself conducting. The composer
would die suddenly a few months later.

Porrino’s drama mirrors a period in archeology when Nuragic Sardinia was discussed even in non-specialist circles, with the island’s bronze statuettes and megaliths recalling a primeval society at the origins of European civilization. Hutalabì, indeed, is the ancient war cry of Sardinian horsemen, and the opera speaks of times when – as Porrino specifi es in the score – shepherds were warriors and judges, “when man did not believe in one God but in the power of the stars, and worshipped the dead and the waters”. I Shardana, therefore, is set in a free Sardinia, an island where rigorous rules are in force and its people do not tolerate invasions or spiritual contamination.

The greatest italian opera of this second post-war (Felix Karlinger). An extraordinary grand-opera of the 20th Century, I Shardana (The Sherden, an ancient Sea-people) is taking place in Sardinia in the Nuragic era, around 3000 years ago. A great teamwork of director Davide Livermore, with the sets of GiòForma production design, D-WOK videodesign, the costumes of Marco Nateri and the lighting by Loic Hamelin, with dancers, mimes, video mapping and slow motion shootings, all at oncer for a monumental show with primitive and natural colors. A world première on Blu Ray.