Maria Elena Björnson

Place: Paris

Born: 1949

Death: 2002

Biography:

Maria Björnson was a theatre designer. She was born in Paris to a Norwegian father and Romanian mother. She was the great-granddaughter of the Norwegian playwright Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903. Björnson was raised by her mother and grew up in London. She studied at the Lycée Français, and then at the Byam Shaw School of Art and at the Central School of Art and Design. She designed sets and costumes for theatre, ballet and opera. She worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and designed Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera – for which she won a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design and for Best Costume Design, and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design and for Outstanding Costume Design – and the Trevor Nunn production of Aspects of Love. Björnson was designated the "Designer's Designer" for the London Observer in 1990.