Today’s Video of the Day is a performance of Donizetti’s La Prière ‘Voici le jour qui va paraître’ by Michael Spyres, Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Giulio Zappa as part of Opera Rara’s Donizetti & Friends. Opera Rara’s multi-year Donizetti Song Project, the programme includes lost and forgotten songs by Gaetano Donizetti, many of which have not been heard in more than nearly 200 years.

Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant, Roger Parker, who discovered the work, said: ‘So far as I know, this song has never ever been published (and that means never performed since the 19C); so this was very likely to be the first public performance ever… The manuscript is in the Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France.’