About the work
L'eroe cinese is a three-act opera seria by Baldassare Galuppi on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It premiered on 30 May 1753 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Metastasio's text about a succession crisis in ancient China was one of the most frequently set librettos of its era; besides Galuppi, roughly twenty other composers used it up to the 1780s, among them Hasse and Cimarosa.
Plot
After the Chinese emperor is overthrown, the loyal minister Leango saves the rightful young heir Sivenio by secretly swapping him for his own son, who is killed in his place. Twenty years later the truth threatens to come out, and Leango must defend his sacrifice and his loyalty to the hidden heir before the young man's true identity is revealed and legitimate rule is restored.
Cultural significance
Galuppi's setting travelled as far as London, where it was performed in 1766, reflecting how widely the vogue for chinoiserie carried this opera across Europe in the 1750s and 60s.