David Montefiore sings Gaetano Donizetti’s tenor aria "Spirto gentil"
from his opera ‘La Favorita’ first performed 1840 - Thomas Schilling, pianoforte
Lake Placid Center for the Performing Arts - September 15, 1984

Here Montefiore expresses true bel canto singing; able to sustain the legato line and negotiate the tessitura above the staff with ease.

“Spirito gentil ne' sogni miei brillasti un dì ma ti perdei:
fuggi dal cor, mentita speme, larve d'amor, fuggite insieme.
Donna sleal, a te d'accanto del genitor scordava il pianto;
la patria, il ciel; e in tanto amore, d'onta mortal macchiasti il core.”

“Gentle spirit in my dreams you shone a day but I lost you: flee from the heart, lied hope, larvae of love, flee together.
Steal woman, next to you of the parent he forgot the cry;
the homeland, the sky; and in so much love, of mortal - stain the core.”