Sunhae Im’s uniquely enthralling voice and her extraordinary stage presence have made her one of the world’s leading sopranos in the opera and concert fields. “Ravishing” – this is how the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described her very special voice. Under the title of Didone abbandonata she now interprets opera arias and cantatas for cpo, some of them with strings, others with continuo, by Niccolò Jommelli, Giovanni Ristori, Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicola Antonio Porpora, and other composers. She is accompanied by Teatro del Mondo, an ensemble that has set itself the task of performing Baroque music tracing its origins to changing times. Dido, the Queen of Carthage who fell in love with Aeneas but whom he then left behind on his voyage from Troy to Rome, is one of the great tragic female figures of antiquity. Operas and some cantatas such as those by Ristori and Faggioli attest to the timeless fascination of this story and to its significance for the Italian Baroque opera.