Italian-born set designer Dante Ferretti, who won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Art Direction for Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, had previously received six Academy Award nominations, for Gangs of New York, Kundun, Interview with the Vampire, The Age of Innocence, Hamlet and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. He began his career in production design in 1967, working with such acclaimed Italian directors as Pier Paoli Pasolini and Federico Fellini. He has also designed productions for most of the major opera houses in the world including Milan's La Scala, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Paris Opera (Bastille), and the opera houses of Turin, Rome and Florence.