Dame Janet Baker (born 1933) is an English mezzo-soprano, one of the great British singers of the twentieth century. She is especially admired in Handel, Gluck, Elgar, Britten and song.

In the Pristine catalogue she appears in Handel’s Rodelinda at Sadler’s Wells with Joan Sutherland, Alfred Hallett and Charles Farncombe.

Baker’s singing combined vocal warmth, textual inwardness and dramatic truthfulness. Even early in her career, the essentials of the artist are already audible.

Her page is essential. Baker’s voice does not simply sing a line; it seems to understand why the line needed singing.