(Los Angeles) May 8, 2023 — LA Opera is proud to announce the addition of two new members to the company's board of directors. Lisa Bratkovich and Nora Manella were elected at a recent board meeting.

"With the company's return to its pre-lockdown level of success, we are even more emboldened in our commitment to moving this art form forward," said Keith R. Leonard, Jr., chairman of LA Opera's board of directors. "With their wide-ranging experience and leadership skills, our new directors will bring fresh perspective to our dynamic and continually evolving board. I am excited to welcome them to our company in this new capacity."

Lisa Bratkovich
A native of Los Angeles, Lisa Bratkovich is an accomplished Chief Marketing Officer and general management executive who has also served on nonprofit boards for 11 years. She is CEO of Direct Upside Group, a best-practice direct-to-consumer marketing consulting practice in Los Angeles that strategically guides large-cap to small-cap companies in launching and igniting direct-to-consumer revenue and profit growth. She is also founding Partner of CMO Syndicate, a collective global consulting practice for fractional CMOs. Previously, she was CMO at ChromaDex and SVP of marketing at GuthylRenker.

Helping champion and elevate women in the workplace is also her passion. She is managing director of Girls in Tech Los Angeles, a former board member and board president of Organization of Women Executives, and a founding member of Chief.

Nora M. Manella
For over three decades, Nora Manella served as a state and federal trial court judge, the United States Attorney for the nation’s largest district, and a presiding justice of the California Court of Appeal. A Los Angeles native, she was appointed six times by California governors and a U.S. president to judicial and executive positions. After serving as counsel to a U.S. Senate subcommittee, she practiced civil litigation in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. For eight years she served as a federal prosecutor before being appointed to the Los Angeles trial courts. In 1994, President Clinton nominated her to be the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. In 1998, President Clinton nominated her to the U.S. District Court. In 2006, she was appointed an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal, and later presiding justice, being rated “exceptionally well qualified.” During her career as an appellate justice, she authored over 1,500 opinions.

About LA Opera
Los Angeles is a city of enormous diversity and creativity, and LA Opera is dedicated to reflecting that vibrancy by redefining what opera can be. Through imaginative new productions, world premiere commissions, and inventive performances that preserve foundational works while making them feel fresh and compelling, LA Opera has become one of America’s most exciting and ambitious opera companies.

In addition to its mainstage performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the company explores unusual repertoire each season through the LA Opera Off Grand initiative, featuring performances in a variety of venues throughout Los Angeles. The LA Opera Connects initiative offers a robust variety of educational programming and community engagement offerings that reaches people throughout every corner of Los Angeles County. The company also offers a multitude of online content via its LA Opera On Now digital offerings, which launched in 2020. Learn more at LAOpera.org.

LA Opera Media Contact
Marlene Meraz
Director of Communications
mmeraz@laopera.org
213.972.7554

LA Opera’s 2022/23 season is generously underwritten by GRoW @ Annenberg.

LA Opera is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the greater Los Angeles community.