A quest for a vanished memory, PAYSAGE DANS L'OUBLI is a historical fresco evoking, for the first time on the lyric stage, the thousand-year-old Vietnam and its link with France since colonisation. Playwright and director Olivier Dhénin Hữu uses theatre as a magic box that goes back in time to recount the chronicle of his ancestors through History and Legend: the Imperial Court of Annam, the myths of the Land of the Dragon, the frightening years of the twentieth century. A way of recalling memories and lost beings to question his Eurasian identity and family memory. Involving composer Benjamin Attahir, the dramatic poem interweaves text, song and music. A new form of opera, imbued with both East and West, to tell the story of these forgotten and rediscovered landscapes. In a spirit of sharing and reciprocity, the company will be working with prestigious Vietnamese cai luong artists and French opera singers. Antonin is the grandson of Rosaline, a Vietnamese woman who left Saigon in 1958 with her children to join her husband in France, a Vietnamese man who was a pilot in the French army. Her daughter Louise has little memory of her childhood in Saigon, her French life having erased the family past. In this new country, she has grown up and forgotten her homeland, just as her mother has given up her former life. Louise's son, Antonin, tries to recover the family memory through his grandmother's stories, old photographs and books.

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