Janet Baker

Dame Janet Baker was born in Hatfield, Yorkshire, in August 1933, the daughter of an engineer. She left school at sixteen to work as a bank clerk and studied singing in her spare time with Helene Isepp and Meriel St Clair in London. She won the Daily Express Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition in 1956 — second prize behind the joint winners — and entered the Glyndebourne Festival Opera chorus the following year, where Vittorio Gui took her into the principal roster.

Her career took shape across three areas. In opera, the central roles were Berlioz’s Dido (the role she sang at the 1969 opening of the Royal Opera House Berlioz centenary cycle under Colin Davis), Charlotte in *Werther*, the title roles in Britten’s *Owen Wingrave* and *Death in Venice* (Lucretia in *Lucrezia*), Handel’s *Ariodante*, Donizetti’s *Mary Stuart*, and Gluck’s Orpheus. In the concert hall, she was central to Britten’s late vocal output (the *Folk Songs*, *Phaedra*, the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake), to the Mahler cycles, and to the substantial British choral repertoire — Elgar’s *Sea Pictures* and *The Dream of Gerontius* particularly. The third area was recital, where her long partnership with the pianist Geoffrey Parsons left a substantial recorded legacy.

Baker retired from staged opera in 1982 with Gluck’s Orpheus at Glyndebourne and from the concert platform in 1989. She was created Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1976 and Companion of Honour in 1994. Music Preserved’s archive includes a substantial range of her operatic, choral and recital work.