Handel never performed his music for Alceste, he characteristically found plenty of practical uses for it. He adapted several sinfonias, choruses, and arias to form the majority of the music for The Choice of Hercules, and several other numbers were later used in revivals of Belshazzar and Alexander Balus.

In Alceste, Admetus, the terminally ill King of Thessaly, is promised by Apollo that he can defer his premature death if another person volunteers to die in his place. Alcestis, the beloved wife of Admetus, bravely sacrifices herself to die in his place. The hero Hercules visits his grieving friend Admetus, resolves to travel to Hades, overpowers Pluto, returns Alcestis to the world of the living, and restores her to Admetus…

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