La leggenda di Sakùntala is a three-act opera by Franco Alfano, who wrote his own libretto based on Kālidāsa's 5th-century-BC drama Shakuntala.

[2] When the score was believed lost in wartime bombing, Alfano reconstructed it, in 1945,[3] now titling it simply Sakùntala, but in 2006 a copy of the original was found.

Critically regarded as Alfano's best work, La leggenda di Sakùntala was performed seven times for Italian radio between its premiere and 1979.

In 2016[5] it was staged and filmed at the Teatro Massimo in Catania with soprano Silvia dalla Benetta and Nikša Bareza conducting, a production released on DVD on the Bongiovanni label.

Daydreaming about the King, Sakùntala fails to hear the hermit Durvasas's entreaties to open the monastery's gate to admit him.