Hunding’s misbehaving trousers fail to scupper a new ship launched on Sydney’s operatic waters.

August 30, 2013, NIDA Parade Theatres, Sydney

It’s interesting how an entertaining wardrobe malfunction can either make or break a production. For up-and-coming company Harbour City Opera, the double helping of Wagner and Mozart promised to showcase the best of Sydney singers, but almost revealed a little more than we all bargained for.

Bleak, melancholy, and profoundly dramatic, Die Walküre was a wintry trek through snowy Scandinavia. It’s notoriously difficult to present successfully on a small scale with a limited budget and only a fraction of the opera. It also requires the audience to have a working knowledge of the story or access to the libretto. After starting twenty-five minutes late Die Walküre was on the back foot from the beginning when the surtitles stopped working shortly after it started.

Although sung extremely well by three talented vocalists, without a full orchestra the music lacked Wagner’s trademark density, feeling a little thin at times. The resulting sparseness in meaning and sound lost some of the audience, not quite achieving the profundity that Wagner’s opera offers.

Sarah Sweeting, who narrowly avoided being trampled by the entering audience as she...