WHAT IT ’S REALLY L IKE… to dress Opera Australia

As Wardrobe and Wig Director at OPERA AUSTRALIA LYN HEAL is tasked with bringing COSTUMES TO LIFE onstage. She tells us how it all comes together, WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS and all.

Every day is different, but most of my time is taken up with scheduling and costing shows. I have to make sure there is plenty of work, or, if we have too much work, that we get staff in. I also need to deal with designers and other people in the company. I deal with singers a lot, organising when they’re available for fittings and just keeping it all churning over. We usually have about four to five productions in the workroom at any one time. When a new production comes in, we start working through each costume with the designer to talk about the type of fabric and how they see the costumes working. I need that information so I can cost out the show. Then it just comes down to whether we can afford it or not. If not, it’s back to the drawing board for a few changes to get it within budget. We start working on a production a year in advance. We’ve just had the designs presented for a new production, which we’ll put on in Sydney in winter next year. We definitely need all that time, especially to source and buy fabrics – about 80 per cent of our fabrics have to come in from overseas these days, because there’s nothing left in Australia. The costumes are picked up and put down a bit over that time. The first couple of months might be buying and collecting the materials needed. Then we’ll start cutting and putting the costumes together for a first fitting, but it may be put down for a month or two while we’re working on other productions. They’re finished off just before we get to the stage. How long a costume takes to make is a bit like how long a piece of string is. Something contemporary could be a couple of days. If you’re talking about a period costume, you’re probably looking at anywhere between 60 and 120 hours. All our costumes are made so they can be altered. We allow large inside seams, so everything can be re-used. We have costumes that have been on 10 different people, the seam