Franz Liszt’s notes for the opera were originally thought to be too haphazard to contain a workable piece of music

An unfinished opera by Franz Liszt about a hapless, peace-loving king is to be heard for the first time after a British scholar deciphered the composer’s fragmentary score.

Sardanapale, an opera based on a story by Byron, has been in an archive for almost 170 years because experts assumed that the 111 pages were too haphazard to contain a workable piece of music.

David Trippett, senior lecturer at Cambridge University, studied the manuscript and realised that it contained a complete first act of what was intended to be a three-act work.

An excerpt will be performed in June at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Anush Hovhannisyan, a soprano who helped Dr Trippett to understand how the opera would sound, is in the