Biographies
Marla Forbes
Managing Director
Marla Forbes is Founder and General Director of Opera Theatre North, a professional
opera company dedicated to producing high quality, creatively narrated, and
edited opera. With performances along Chicago's northshore, Opera Theatre
North has experienced 40% average annual growth in audience size, earned,
and contributed income, since its first performance in November 1996. As General
Director, Marla fundraises, develops marketing plans, casts and edits the
operas, and writes scripts for some of the narrators who perform in the productions.
Her fundraising efforts are aided by growing Board of Directors.
Marla received her MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern
University in 1986, while working full-time as a management consultant for
Towers Perrin. Prior to her position at Towers Perrin, she held sales and
marketing positions with both the Chicago Sun-Times and MCI Communications.
Her background also includes over 15 years of piano and vocal studies. Marla
holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Illinois
at Champaign-Urbana, and is currently on the Advisory Board of Directors for
the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. She resides in Highland Park with
her husband and two children.
In addition to producing Opera Theatre North productions, Marla is frequently
hired to provide opera and musical entertainment at private parties, corporate
functions and fundraisers.
Francesco Milioto
Music Director
Francesco Milioto, who hails from Canada, is becoming a local luminary as conductor, music director and pianist. He is currently in his fourth season as Music Director of Opera Theatre where last season, he conducted critically acclaimed productions of The Magic Flute and I Pagliacci. His musical direction of a 22-piece orchestra at Opera Theatre North’s gala benefit, The Romeo and Juliet Story, helped inspire the remounting of this hybrid concert by the Highland Park Strings later this season. For the past three summers he has served as Music Director for operas sponsored by the City of Chicago that were performed in Preston Bradley Hall. He will be conducting a November production of Dido and Aeneas, produced by The Chicago Cultural Center. These include productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Candide, L’enfant at les Sortileges and Genevieve de Brabant. Of his musical direction of Candide, during the summer of 2003, the Chicago Tribune said …“Milioto was the spark plug of the performance.” Mr. Milioto is a featured accompanist with The Chicago Children’s Choir, and recently served as music director/pianist of Apple Tree Theatre’s production of Jammin’ with Pops. Francesco is also the assistant conductor of The Highland Park Strings, a position he gained following a successful tour of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with the group last February. Francesco holds a master’s degree in orchestral conducting and opera repertoire from Montreal’s McGill University.
Opera Theatre North is pleased to have Chicago Opera Theater assistant director, Andrew Eggert direct this year's production of La bohéme. Past productions as assistant director at Chicago Opera Theater include Death in Venice, L'incoronazione di Poppea, The Turn of the Screw, Agrippina, Così fan tutte, The Rape of Lucretia, and Semele. Mr. Eggert has spent three summers at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, NY, as assistant director of Don Giovanni and Orlando Paladino and will return to work on Patience in 2004. He has worked at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, the Goodman Theatre, and the Theatre Program of the University of Rochester, NY, where he directed his own adaptation of Marivaux's The Triumph of Love. In 2004 he directed his own adaptation of The Impresario for Chicago Opera Theater's outreach program. Mr. Eggert is a graduate of Yale University.