Janet Baker

Biography and career

Janet Abbott Baker was born in Hatfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where her father was an engineer and chorister; family members worked at Bentley Pit in Doncaster. She attended York College for Girls and Wintringham Girls' Grammar School in Grimsby. The death of her elder brother Peter from a heart condition when she was ten was a formative moment, as she revealed in a 2011 BBC Radio 3 interview. She worked in a bank before moving to London in 1953 to train with Meriel St Clair and Helene Isepp, whose son Martin became her regular accompanist.

In 1956 she was knocked down by a bus, suffering concussion and a persistent back injury, and that year came second in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition at Wigmore Hall. Her stage debut came in 1956 with Oxford University's Opera Club as Miss Róza in Smetana's The Secret, and she also debuted at Glyndebourne that year. In 1959 she sang Eduige in the Handel Opera Society's Rodelinda, later recording Ariodante with Raymond Leppard and singing Orlando at the Barber Institute.

With the English Opera Group at Aldeburgh she performed Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Polly in Britten's The Beggar's Opera, and Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia. At Glyndebourne she appeared as Dido, Diana/Jupiter in Cavalli's La Calisto, and Penelope in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria. For Scottish Opera she sang Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Dido in Berlioz's The Trojans and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, the latter considered her signature role.

Honours and awards

Baker was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970 and appointed Dame Commander in 1976. She became a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1993. In 1968 she was initiated as an Honorary Member of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity by the Alpha Omicron chapter at Occidental College.

She holds Honorary Membership (1987) and the Gold Medal (1990) of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and has been a vice-president of The Bach Choir since 1983. In 2007 she received the Distinguished Musician Award from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and in 2011 she was installed as an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. She was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Northern College of Music in 1978 and was voted into Gramophone's Hall of Fame in 2012.

Private life

In 1957, Janet Baker married James Keith Shelley in Harrow. He then became her manager and went with her to performances, and the couple chose not to have children to prioritize her career.

After she stopped singing, Baker took on spoken roles, including narrating Britten's The Rescue of Penelope. In her later years, she kept to a small circle of close friends—among them Felicity Lott, Imogen Cooper, Jane Glover, and Patricia Routledge—who featured in a 2019 BBC documentary. When her husband had a stroke, Baker looked after him at home until his death in June 2019.

Recordings {{anchor|EMI ASD 2338}}

Baker's recordings include Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Beverly Sills, Robert Lloyd, Nicolai Gedda, and Raimund Herincx, conducted by Giuseppe Patanè (1975, EMI). She recorded Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict with Christiane Eda-Pierre, Helen Watts, and Robert Tear, conducted by Colin Davis (1977, Philips). Scenes from Act V of Les Troyens and La Mort de Cléopâtre were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Alexander Gibson (1969, EMI).

Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ was recorded with the John Alldis Choir and London Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis (1976, Philips), and La Mort de Cléopâtre with the same orchestra and conductor (1979, Philips). Brahms's Alto Rhapsody was recorded with the John Alldis Choir and London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult (1970, EMI). Britten's Spring Symphony with Sheila Armstrong and Robert Tear, conducted by André Previn, was recorded in 1978 (EMI).

Delius's Songs of Sunset was recorded with John Shirley-Quirk and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Charles Groves. Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius was recorded twice: with the Hallé Orchestra under John Barbirolli (1964) and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle (1986). Sea Pictures was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Barbirolli (1965, EMI). A video of Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice from Glyndebourne, conducted by Raymond Leppard, was released in 1982.

Handel's Julius Caesar with English National Opera under Charles Mackerras was recorded in 1984 (Chandos). Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Geraint Evans and the London Philharmonic under Wym Morris was recorded in 1966 (Nimbus). Kindertotenlieder with the Hallé Orchestra under Barbirolli was released in 1968 (EMI), and Rückert Lieder with the Scottish National Orchestra under Jascha Horenstein was recorded in 1967 (BBC Legends).

Did You Know?

• In 1976 she premiered the solo cantata Phaedra, written for her by Benjamin Britten.
• Her final operatic appearance was as Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice on 17 July 1982 at Glyndebourne.
• She was elected Chancellor of the University of York in 1991 and held the position until 2004.