Last Wednesday, superstar Korean soprano Sumi Jo ventured into John Papadopoulos's costume department for her sole Australian fitting. By Friday she had four exquisite frocks for her opening night performance in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Opera House tomorrow evening.
Papadopoulos, 60, should be used to such nightmares: he has been the senior costumier for Opera Australia since 1977, creating, by his estimate, "thousands" of dresses for hundreds of operas.
Welcome to his world, he says dryly: ulcer-inducing stress, temperamental divas, demanding budgets. Still, he is sustained, he says, by a great love for this lost art - creating the look for huge productions and acting as therapist, diplomat, confessor and friend to the high-priced talent.
"A costumier is not just a costumier," he says. "You are like a doctor, you have to try to read their faces, their characters, their temperaments. It's psychological."
This is particularly crucial when it comes to the delicate subject of weight. "You have to be like a Canberra politician," he says, laughing. "Very, very careful, because they can get hurt."
Papadopoulos was a Parisian-trained couturier, mingling with the likes of Saint Laurent and Courreges before coming to Australia. Here, he met opera aristocracy, including Luciano Pavarotti - "a very funny man, he's like a big baby" - and worked with Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin on Nicole Kidman's costumes for Moulin Rouge.
Opera remains his enduring passion, but he admits that a few divas can be a "little unpleasant". Dame Joan Sutherland was "wonderful" but others, including world-famous soprano Eva Marton, with whom he worked on a 1985 production of Tosca, have been a little more mercurial.
"When I spoke to her [about the designs], she told me in French that my opinion did not matter and to get out of her dressing room," he says, laughing.
And the disasters? One incident in 1978 was particularly traumatic. Papadopoulos turned up for work at the company's former headquarters in George Street, only to find that the entire wardrobe for Macbeth had been ruined overnight when burst vats of Coca-Cola leaked through the wooden ceiling from the RSL above.
So what happens to these lavish outfits after their day on stage? The ones worn by the general cast are recycled, but the divas' outfits are made new each time.
Sumi Jo's costumes, for example, will never be worn again. "She's tiny," Papadopoulos chuckles. "I don't think there are many other divas who would fit into them, no?"