When he was eighteen years old Hasse was employed in Hamburg as a tenor in the opera thanks to the recommendation fo Ulrich Konig. Keiser was the director and four years later Hasse was able to present his first opera "Antigonus." With this as an exception, the majority of the operas that he composed were written to Italian librettos. "Antigonus" was the only German text for which he composed. He felt he needed further study even after the success of his first opera so he traveled to Naples where he was under the tutelage of Popora and then Scarlatti. By 1731 he had composed at least three more operas, and returned to Germany where he became the Court Kappelmeister in Dresden as well as the director of the opera. Hasse did continue to make visits to Italy, and London, but made his home in Dresden until war broke out in 1760. He went to Vienna where he was able to compose a number of well-received operas with librettos by Metastasio. Assimilation of the Italian style of opera and a phenomenal ability to compose melodically with pathos were demonstrated in these works. For a short time Hasse was the most popular operatic composer in Europe and wrote over one hundred operas. Other genres that he employed included oratorios, cantatas, masses, symphonies, concertos, and sonatas. Hasse was distinguished as a singer with a fine voice but his arias were strictly conventional. He did not supercede the tradition in which he was schooled but was a tasteful and accepted composer particularly by his peers. The arias for "Artaserse" for which he is most remembered were "Pallido e il sole" and "Per questo dolce amplesso." "Demofoonte" and "Arminio" were two more of his familiar operas. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi