The only hydrangeas that will tolerate a full sun setting without stress are paniculatas. And there are many to choose from with regards to size, degree of coloring and even flower shape. And while somewhat low maintenance in their needs, they are not maintenance free - few living plants are.

Panicle hydrangeas are the safe bet most times as they tolerate more sun as long as it is not in the southwest (they need afternoon shade there starting at 3 or 5pm through 9pm in the summer). However, hydrangeas are not "plug and play". They will need supplemental watering when it is bone dry, mulching, some fertilizing and minor pruning if they happen to have stems that fail to leaf out. But monitoring of the soil moisture, acidifying of alkaline soils and maintaining of a layer of organic mulch should not be difficult though. They will take 1-3 years to become established and grow vigorously. You can select tree-form varieties if you wish to experiment but you can keep it simple with only shrub form panicle varieties instead. There are new compact panicle varieties on the market that get 2.5 to 3 feet tall and older ones that get as high as a small tree so check the plants estimated size (height and width) at maturity.

All I do to my panicle hydrangeas is shear the old flowers off in late winter and remove any dead branches which doesn’t happen much. There are plenty of varieties on the market now in a range of sizes so pick the one that fits the space. Don’t try to make one fit the space by pruning

Thank you all, terrific information.