One of a trio of roles with which she gave up stage-work – the others were Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Gluck's Orfeo - it saw this great artist at the height of her powers and on immaculate form.

Euripides' Alcestis is one of the strangest of all Greek plays, combining as it does near-tragedy with elements of the satyr plays that more normally accompanied tragedies as separate pieces. In the middle of the play, Hercules turns up and, drunkenly thumping around, boasts of his heroic deeds like the country bumpkin in a Restoration comedy.

Gluck received the storyline via a contemporary source and he takes a much more demure approach. Hercules appears but as a sedate and noble character. All is stately, solemn and played within straight classical lines.

Like Gluck's other great masterpiece Orfeo ed Euridice, the plot involves a woman rescued from Hades, this time with more permanent results. The queen Alceste offers herself as a sacrifice to the gods in order to save her husband's life. Such devotion is rewarded by a king who is prepared to go to the gates of Hell to bring her back, although it's actually the hero Hercules who achieves the rescue.

Charles Mackerras conducts the Royal Opera Orchestra with great beauty and firm control, the exquisite, sometimes extended, dance sequences providing uplift from the otherwise sober material. Baker is superlative as Alceste but she's not alone and a cast of Royal Opera regulars of the time provide excellent support.

As the king Admetus, Robert Tear is on top form and John Shirley-Quirk, the great baritone who like Tear was a Britten favourite, is commanding as The High Priest. Jonathan Summers is a striking Hercule.

As Janet Baker never recorded this opera commercially, this CD set is of inestimable value for anyone wanting to hear her assumption of the role.

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