Maria Björnson

Maria Björnson, the set and costume designer who created the rich, sumptuous visual world of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera — a world of underground caverns, windswept rooftops and pastiche opera spectacle — was found dead in her London home Dec. 13, 2002, according to the Times of London. The Paris-born Ms. Björnson was 53. No other information about her death has been reported. The woman who created what is arguably the most famous chandelier in theatrical history (it comes crashing down to the stage every night in the Harold Prince staging of the Lloyd Webber hit) was, the Times reported, a "love child" — the daughter of a Romanian mother, Mia Prodan, who survives her, and a Norwegian businessman, Bjorn Bjornson. Her great-grandfather was the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian playwright, Bjornstjerne Bjornson.