"Now Sardinia is safe: there is a strip of coastline covering on average three kilometres from the sea where it is not possible to build anything. "The government and the majority have kept faith with a commitment made in our election campaign that for us is a fundamental point in our programme," he said. The measure to protect Sardinia's coasts had first been imposed as a "decree law" two years ago, but this week a more carefully finessed version was passed into law.The island's governor, Renato Soru, the billionaire founder of the internet service provider Tiscali, who has made the preservation of the island's exquisite environment a personal crusade, was radiant. Then in 2004, with the help of a friendly mayor of Olbia, it finally got a green light. Now, however, it seems doomed. The plan has been in the air since the former prime minister set his sights on the island 25 years ago. The plan, which envisaged 500 hectares of villas and hotels, and moorings for 2,000 yachts, was rejected by successive island governments. But he added: "I thought this was a brilliant idea that would work."I find the film more and more engrossing and moving."The opera is the story of Pamina, a princess under the restrictive influence of her mother, the Queen of the Night.

Sarastro, a priest, takes Pamina to a temple to rescue her but the queen induces the young Prince Tamino to find her daughter and bring her back. But Tamino falls under the influence of the priest and finds true love with Pamina.Branagh's next production will see him directing Jude Law and Michael Caine in a remake of Sleuth, an adaptation by Harold Pinter of the Anthony Shaffer play, which was originally filmed with Caine and Laurence Olivier.. Sardinia took a giant step towards saving its coastline for posterity this week when the island's regional assembly approved a law banning construction on 1,100 miles of land near the sea. The law is expected to kill off plans from Silvio Berlusconi's brother Paolo to build a huge tourist complex on the Costa Turchese on the island's east coast, near Olbia. "Hamlet was the first Shakespeare play that I discovered and studied in depth at school, and to see Ken's Hamlet completely took my breath away," she said."He made me believe that instead of just reading a Shakespeare play, I could pick it up and do it and bring it alive." The £14m production, with a libretto translated from the German by Stephen Fry, is Branagh's first venture into opera."Although the comedy and the charm of the music hit me first, I was struck by the intensity and the drama of it,' he said. "It seemed that in the music there was a kind of plea for peace."The actor/director admitted he had tried to make it as provocative as possible."Whatever piece of art you attempt, you try and bring you own originality to it," he said.The Magic Flute has been made before - by the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman - but some critics believe that Mozart's operas do not work well on film.Sir Peter Moores admitted that some operatic productions had failed to translate to the big screen. Since leaving Cambridge she has pursued a freelance career, working with the likes of the eminent conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir.She was thrilled when Branagh chose her for the movie, which has been funded by Sir Peter Moores, the Littlewoods pools heir and philanthropist who is a supporter of opera sung in English.Working with Branagh was a dream come true.

I'm very excited to play it because I'm young and Mozart had a very young girl sing it - he created the role for Anna Gottlieb, who was 17 when she sang it."Carson, from Bristol, said she had sung all her life. "I heard about the auditions and got in touch at rather a late stage and asked whether there was still a chance I could audition," she told a press conference in Venice yesterday."I've always been enchanted by the part of Pamina. She was cast straight out of university without a professional performance to her name. But last night Amy Carson, 23, was the belle of the ball at the Venice Film Festival as the star of Kenneth Branagh's new adaptation of Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute. Branagh plucked her from obscurity for the role of Pamina in his version of the opera, which has been set against the backdrop of the trenches of the First World War. Until then, Carson's experience of singing in public was limited to her early years as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral - one of the first intake of girls - and tours with the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, where she studied music until last summer.