SINGING 2000 : Laureate
Soprano Sunhae Im was born in South Korea. After graduating in Seoul she continued her vocal training with Roland Hermann at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. Her repertoire focuses on works of the Baroque and Classical periods and since 1999 she has worked together with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, William Christie, Fabio Biondi, Sigiswald Kuijken, Thomas Hengelbrock, Frans Brüggen, Andrea Marcon, Kent Nagano, Riccardo Chailly, Lothar Zagrosek, Sylvain Cambreling, Michael Gielen, Ton Koopman, Manfred Honeck and Marek Janowski.
Sunhae Im has a close artistic partnership with René Jacobs and has sung in performances conducted by him of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, the roles of Servilia (La clemenza di Tito), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), La Musica and Euridice (L’Orfeo), Rodisette in Der geduldige Sokrates by Telemann, Ilia (Idomeneo), Eurilla in Haydn’s Orlando Paladino, Despina (Così fan tutte) and Serpetta (La finta giardiniera).
Since making her European stage debut in 2001 at the Frankfurt Opera and the Hanover State Opera, Sunhae Im has given guest performances as Adele (Die Fledermaus) at the Hamburg State Opera, as Yniold (Pelléas et Mélisande) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and as Euridice in Gluck’s Orpheus und Eurydike conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock at the Opéra national de Paris. She was highly acclaimed as Ilia in Idomeneo conducted by Manfred Honeck at the Stuttgart State Opera, where she also sang her first Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro). In Paris and Epidaurus she gave guest performances as Amor in Gluck’s Orpheus. In February 2010 she sang Zerlina under Iván Fischer in Budapest and made her debut at the Korean National Opera singing Adina (L’elisir d’amore) and Ilia in performances conducted by Myung-Whun Chung. In November 2010 she was to be heard at the Theater an der Wien as Serpetta in a new production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera conducted by René Jacobs, which besides guest performances in Madrid and Oviedo will also be recorded on CD.
Engagements of the 2010-11 season took Sunhae Im as Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), conducted by René Jacobs, to the Salzburg Mozart Week, as Sœur Constance (Dialogues des Carmélites) to the Stuttgart State Opera and with Monteverdi’s Orfeo to Montpellier. Future performances include Zerlina under Iván Fischer in New York and Las Palmas, the Mass in B minor conducted by René Jacobs in Korea and in Lausanne, the Christmas Oratorio in Stuttgart and a tour of Asia with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.
Sunhae Im’s CDs include René Jacobs’s recordings of Don Giovanni (Zerlina) and La clemenza di Tito (Servilia; Grammy Award 2007) as well as - under Juan Bautista Otero - Domenec Terradella’s Artaserse (Orphée d’Or of the Académie Nationale du Disque Lyrique 2009) and Martín y Soler’s Il sogno and La Dora festeggiante (Muse d’Or 2010).