Anticipating the theme of Leonore's conjugal fidelity in Fidelio (Beethoven, 1805), Alceste sacrifices life in exchange for that of her husband Admète, king of Thessaly. However, once dead, Hercules descends into Hell and intercedes with Apollo so that the couple can meet again in their love. Alceste (1767) is a reformist opera with a libretto in Italian by Ranieri de 'Calzabigi and music by Christoph Willibald Gluck. It is in the original score of Alceste that Calzibigi and Gluck sign the famous manifesto where they idealize norms that intend to give the writing and the operatic form a greater clarity of style. A widely revised version of Alceste, with libretto in French by Leblanc du Rollet and a literary rendering of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, premiered in Paris in April 1776, and this is the one to be presented in São Carlos. Graham Vick, after the successes Werther (2004) and The Ring of the Nibelung (2006-2009) in São Carlos, now has this new production with the musical direction of Graeme Jenkins.