නිශ්ශංක දිද්දෙණිය
24 songs performed
Nishshanka Diddeniya (නිශ්ශංක දිද්දෙණිය, also spelled Nissanka Diddeniya) is a Sri Lankan stage actor and singer, one of the principal voices of the classical Sinhala theatre founded by Ediriweera Sarachchandra. He is best known for performing leading roles and their songs in landmark stylised dramas such as Maname and Sinhabahu, where his trained stage voice carried the verse of an entire generation of Sri Lankan playhouse music.
Diddeniya was born on 27 January 1945 in Panawenna, near Kahawatta in the Sabaragamuwa region, into a family in which both parents sang. He was schooled locally before formal training in up-country dance and Eastern music, and he won recognition early, taking the best-singer prize at a 1963 Sabaragamuwa provincial singing contest. He entered the University of Peradeniya in the late 1960s, the home ground of Sarachchandra’s theatre, and later earned the Sangeeth Visharada qualification.
Diddeniya became closely associated with Sarachchandra’s stylised dramas, performing in Maname and taking the title role in Sinhabahu over many years. He also appeared in works by other major directors of Sinhala theatre, including productions in the nadagam and folk-opera traditions, and built a teaching career as a lecturer in drama and Nadagam music. In 2020 he received the Natya Keerthi honour at the State Drama Festival for a contribution to the stage spanning more than four decades.
The songs Nishshanka Diddeniya is remembered for are inseparable from the plays that produced them. His readings of the Maname verses, sung in the chanted, raga-shaped manner Sarachchandra devised, remain reference performances, as does his work in the Sinhabahu and Gajaman Puwatha repertoire. As Nissanka Diddeniya, his stage recordings are still circulated and studied by students of Sinhala theatre.
Diddeniya belongs to the lineage of performers who kept Sarachchandra’s theatre alive on stage long after its first nights, and his name is a fixture for anyone searching the Maname and Sinhabahu song texts. For listeners abroad, the value is in reading these classical verses with their Sinhala script, transliteration, and English meaning together, which is how the Diddeniya stage repertoire is presented here.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Nishshanka Diddeniya.