Born of Norwegian and Romanian parents in Paris, Maria Bjornson (1949-2002) came to England as a child and trained in London at the Byam Shaw School of Art and then at the Central School of Art And Design. She began her career designing sets and costumes for productions at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre and subsequently worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but her preference for large, romantic sets and elaborate costumes led her to opera and she designed productions for all the major British opera companies and for opera houses around the world. She won many awards for her work, including the silver medal at the 1983 Prague Biennale for her designs for the cycle of Janacek operas jointly presented by Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera.

Bjornson designed both sets and costumes for Andrew Lloyd Webber's highly successful musical The Phantom of the Opera which opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1986. Working with a budget of £900,000 she created some spectacular effects, including the fall of a huge chandelier, a boat ride across an underground lake and a sumptuously dressed masked ball. Her design for Michael Crawford as the Phantom shows the costume and samples of the fabrics to be used, and also indicates how and when the character will make his appearance in the 'graveyard in Perros'. The note that the skull stick is to be recharged every night shows that the sinister unnatural light from the glowing skull is to be achieved with batteries.