About the work
Tragedy by Euripides, first performed in 438 BC at the Athenian City Dionysia as the fourth play of a tetralogy — an unusual position normally reserved for a satyr play, which gives the work its tragicomic tone. It won second prize.
Plot
King Admetus of Pherae may escape death if someone agrees to die in his place; only his wife Alcestis is willing, and she dies for him. When the god's guest Heracles, staying in the house, learns of the sacrifice, he wrestles Death itself and brings a veiled Alcestis back to her husband.
Cultural significance
As the earliest of Euripides' plays to survive complete, 'Alcestis' occupies a special place in the tragic canon through its blend of grief, hospitality and comic elements such as the drunken Heracles. It later inspired, among other works, Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera 'Alceste' (1767).