Da Cheng Ying a Leango: la lealtà cinese nella trasposizione melodrammatica di Metastasio

This article traces the translation path that led to various Western theatrical rewritings of The Orphan of Zhao family ( Zhaoshi gu'er 趙氏孤兒), the famous Chinese drama of the Yuan 元 dynasty (1271-1368) by playwright Ji Junxiang紀君祥. Taking into account the earliest historical Chinese sources, the article analyses the theatrical and musical re-adaptations that followed the first French translation of the drama, by the Jesuit missionary J. H. M. de Premare (1735). In particular, the analysis focuses on the libretto L’eroe cinese ( The Chinese Hero ) by Pietro Metastasio (1752). Comparing and analysing the textus receptus and this Italian rewriting, we try to demonstrate how the image of China represented in this work, filtered through the translation of P. de Premare, is only evoked as an exotic context, following the fashion of the era for the chinoiserie . Subsequently, the article offers a comparison between Cheng Ying, main character of Chinese drama, and Leango, protagonist of the melodrama by Metastasio, analysing the way in which they express their loyalty to their lord and react to the adversities of life, revealing the cultural differences of the context from which the two works derived.