The 2009-2010 Concert Season at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari continues with its twelfth appointment on Friday 19th February at 8.30pm (session A) and Sunday 21st February at 7pm (session B). Following the public’s approval in the last two Seasons for The Queen of Spades by Petr Il’ič Čaikovskij (2008), Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók (2008) and Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin (2009), and after the recent success of Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck; the Teatro Lirico proposes the performance of another opera in concert form: I Shardana – Gli uomini dei Nuraghi, the musical drama in three acts by Ennio Porrino (Cagliari, 20 January 1910 – Rome, 25 September 1959). I Shardana is the central piece of a series of events organized by the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in collaboration with the State Music Conservatory “Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina”, Cagliari, on the occasion of the centenary of the composer’s birth. This unique occasion permits the audience to concentrate particularly on the music, in the absence of the visual part typical of an opera production (direction, scenery, costumes and lights).
The main parts are performed by: Giorgio Surjan (Gonnario), Annarita Gemmabella (Nibatta), Rudy Park (Torbeno), Maria Billeri (Bèrbera Jonia), Gianluca Floris (Perdu), Gevorg Hakobyan (Norace) and Alessandro Senes (Orzocco). Anthony Bramall conducts the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari Orchestra and Chorus. Fulvio Fogliazza is the Chorus master.

The opera was first performed at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on 21st March 1959, won the public and the critics’ approval immediately and the composer’s ability to blend classical melody and the origins of Sardinian music was recognized. On 18th March 1960 I Shardana was performed at the Teatro Massimo in Cagliari (cast: Carlo Cava, Gastone Limarilli, Walter Monachesi, Luisa Malagrida and Oralia Dominguez; conductor Armando La Rosa Parodi; producer Marcella Govoni), for the commemoration of the composer’s recent passing.