Editing Johann Adolph Hasse (section)

==Dresden: 1744–1763==
[[File:Johann Adolph Hasse by Balthasar Denner.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Hasse in 1740, painted by [[Balthasar Denner]]]]
Between the winter of 1744 and late summer 1745, Hasse was in Italy, but then returned to Dresden for a year. [[Frederick the Great]], a keen flute player, visited the court in December 1745, and it is likely that many of Hasse's flute sonatas and concertos that date to this time were written for Frederick. The King of Prussia was also present at a performance of one of Hasse's ''Te Deum''s, and himself ordered a performance of the composer's opera ''Arminio''. Soon after Hasse visited Venice and Munich, returning to Dresden in June 1747 to stage his opera ''La spartana generosa'', performed to celebrate multiple royal weddings at this time. Also at this time the hierarchy at Dresden was restructured; [[Nicola Porpora]] was named ''Kapellmeister,'' while Hasse himself was promoted to ''Oberkapellmeister.''

In 1748 Hasse performed two of his operas, ''Ezio'' and ''[[Artaserse (Hasse)|Artaserse]],'' in [[Bayreuth]] in the half finished [[Markgräfliches Opernhaus]], because of the marriage of [[Elisabeth Fredericka Sophie of Brandenburg-Bayreuth]], the daughter of [[Wilhelmine of Bayreuth]]. The marriage of princess Maria Josepha of Saxony to the [[Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765)|French Dauphin]] gave Hasse the opportunity to journey to Paris in the summer of 1750, where his ''Didone abbandonata'' was performed.

On 28 March 1750 Hasse presented his last oratorio ''La conversione di Sant' Agostino'' in the chapel of the royal palace in Dresden. The libretto, penned by the [[Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria|Dresden Electress Maria Antonia Walpurgis]] (1724–1780), concerns the conversion of a sinner to sainthood and was modeled after and edited by [[Pietro Metastasio|Metastasio]]. The Dresden premiere was followed by numerous performances of the work in [[Leipzig]], Hamburg, Mannheim, [[Padua]], Rome, [[Riga]], [[Prague]], Potsdam and Berlin which is a testament to the work's popularity in the latter half of the 18th century.

The 1751 Carnival in Dresden saw the retirement of Faustina from operatic performance. Hasse continued to produce new operas throughout the decade, including a setting of Metastasio's ''Il re pastore'', a text [[Il re pastore|later used]] by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]. In 1756 the [[Seven Years' War]] compelled the court at Dresden to move to [[Warsaw]], though Hasse himself lived mostly in Italy, travelling to Poland solely to supervise productions of his operas, if at all. In the autumn of 1760 he moved to Vienna, where he stayed for the next two years, returning to Dresden in 1763 to find much of his home destroyed and the musical apparatus of the court opera wrecked. Hasse's main patron at Dresden, king [[Augustus III of Poland|Augustus III of Poland and Saxony]] died soon after and his successor, who also died quickly, deemed elaborate musical events at the court superfluous. Hasse and Faustina were paid two years' salary but given no pension.<ref>Reference for this section: {{harvnb|Hansell|2001|loc=§5 "The final Dresden period, 1744–63"}}</ref>