The most famous merchant and traveller’s extraordinary adventure on the Silk Road comes back to life thanks to a selection of costumes of the unforgettable television drama Marco Polo, the great RAI production broadcasted between 1982 and 1983, which is, still today, one of the net’s most successful TV series - being shown in no less than 46 countries - and the first one produced in collaboration with a Chinese broadcaster.
The exhibition "Marco Polo. The costumes of Enrico Sabbatini" showcased at Palazzo Mocenigo, relives the magic of a colossal production, an international cast, and a creative, scenographic and staging challenge, with about thirty costumes from the set and original sketches, resulting from four years of study and preparation of the film and stage photos.
The exhibition pays tribute to the great costume designer Enrico Sabbatino through the work of Stefano Nicolao and his atelier: it is with this blockbuster that the Venetian tailor starts his career when he was called in 1980 precisely by Sabbatini to work under extreme conditions in Nepal, on the Himalayan chain, to make costumes that represented the move from Persia to China. Said costumes became a source of pride for the locals involved in the shooting and were often brought outside the set and shown to the rest of the community.
With Marco Polo, Sabbatini became renowned even overseas, and eventually signed the costumes of some Hollywood productions, receiving numerous nominations at the Emmy Awards for Jesus of Nazareth (1977) by Franco Zaffirelli, Abraham by Joseph Sargent (1994), Cleopatra by Franc Rodden (1999), and both a British Academy Award and a nomination for the Oscars with Mission by Roland Joffé (1986).
The exhibition is an opportunity to remember the creative genius of two other great interpreters as well: Giuliano Montaldo, director of the big production that involved Venice above all, with the invention on Lido Island, in Malamocco, of a San Marco Square of the end of the 13th century; and Ennio Morricone, who signed the extraordinary soundtrack of the film.
