Giorgio Abkhasi(1892-1964)
- Production Designer
Russian (Georgian)-born set designer of Italian film, opera, and theatre. He was born Georgij Georgevic Abchazi on 10 October 1892 in Maglisi. In 1911 he moved to Moscow and two years later to Liege. In 1914 he spent six months in Paris, where he attended the Institute of Fine Arts. In Italy since 1919, as an army officer on behalf of the Russian Foreign Ministry at the Georgia mission in Rome, he was appointed consul of Georgia in the 1920. His transfer to Milan in 1923 opened doors to his success as a set designer in the theatre. He supervised set design for many important theatrical productions and from 1930 was associated with the company of Dario Niccodemi. In 1936, he designed sets for Donizetti 's Elisir d'amore , which was staged for the first time at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. He entered films in 1940, but his first notable work in cinema was for Gallone's La regina di Navarra (1942).