Johann Adolph Hasse

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699–1783) was a German composer born near Hamburg, the leading master of opera seria in his age. He began as a tenor in 1718; his first opera, Antioco, appeared at Brunswick in 1721, and he spent the 1720s in Naples studying under Alessandro Scarlatti.

In 1730 he married Faustina Bordoni and was appointed Kapellmeister at Dresden, becoming Oberkapellmeister in 1747. He frequently set libretti by Pietro Metastasio. The Seven Years' War scattered the court, and after his patron Augustus III died in 1763 he worked in Vienna before ending his life in Venice.