About Opera Theatre North

The mission of Opera Theatre is to produce high quality, creatively presented opera, for audiences of all ages, in intimate and convenient North Shore locations.

Founder and Managing Director, Marla Forbes, felt a growing need within the community to present professional opera in an understandable, yet, artistic way, creating the concept of narrated opera. It was Ms. Forbes intention to remove many of the barriers currently associated with opera including: high costs, (production and tickets), location and comprehensibility. As a result, OT operas are affordable, last approximately two and one-half hours, or one hour for our family matinees, are produced and presented locally and have accompanying narration. The intimate environments of small theaters provide the audience with exceptional viewing and listening experiences generally reserved for small off-loop theater.

Artistic efforts focus on the engagement of high quality artists, narrators and music directors. Every spring, OT holds open auditions at which we hear hundreds of singers from across the country. Many of our young artists have participated in such renowned programs as the Lyric Opera Center of Chicago, the Santa Fe Opera Young Artist Program and Houston Opera Studio. Our narrators and stage directors are drawn from Chicago’s rich theatrical community, including Writers Theater of Chicago and Lifeline Theater. Our current Music Director, Francesco Milioto has garnered critical acclaim in The Chicago Tribune, Opera News and The San Francisco Chronicle for his unique orchestrations and superior conducting.

Now in its ninth production year, Opera Theatre has experienced unprecedented annual growth in audience size and earned and contributed income, since its first performance of La Boheme in 1996. Over the past seven years, we have presented 15 different operas including: La Boheme, The Barber of Seville, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Pagliacci, Tosca, Don Pasquale, Carmen, The Tales of Hoffmann, Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, and The Marriage of Figaro. This past season we presented an original production of The Romeo and Juliet Story, The Magic Flute and a double-bill of Pagliacci and "To the Nines", a review of our upcoming ninth season.

Our high caliber productions appeal to the opera novice as well as the seasoned opera aficionado. Our recent production of The Magic Flute was critically acclaimed in both The Chicago Tribune and The Pioneer Press. And a recent audience survey confirmed that 50% of our audience is Lyric Opera attendees. Last summer, we presented our Family Matinee of The Barber of Seville to a sold-out house, at Ravinia’s Martin Theater, and returned this August for two sold-out performances of The Magic Flute. Our popularity has attracted several corporate sponsors and individual donors and has inspired our recent move to the North Shore Center for Performing Arts in an effort to better serve our expanding geographic base.