It’s four year since I met with the great mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker to interview for our Milestones series - the milestone in question was Dame Janet’s 80th birthday. I’d first heard her in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito when I was about 16, and can still remember the standing ovation that seemed to last forever when she took her solo bow. Meeting her in person, all those years later, I was struck by the wonderfully considered answers she gave and her lively sense of humour, something I’d not expected. To celebrate her 84th, we republish it here.

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Musical excerpts on the Podcast are taken from the set EMI (now Warner Classics) released to mark Dame Janet’s 80th birthday, with the exception of that from Britten's Phaedra, which is taken from the Decca recording of the work.