The Prague Chamber Choir has been coming to the Wexford Opera Festival since 1990 - and now the daughter of two of its singers has a 'beautiful Wexford accent'. Some of the choir members talk to Arminta Wallace as the festival prepares to celebrate 50 years

The image is both timeless and utterly of its time. The cover of Pádraig Grant's book of backstage photographs of the 50th Wexford Festival, published to celebrate half a century of operatic activity in that town and entitled A Remarkable Festival, shows a child perched on an ornately curlicued seat in the otherwise deserted Theatre Royal, gazing in the direction of the stage.

At first glance the little girl looks distinctly Slavic: blonde hair pulled back from her face, high cheekbones. Closer inspection, however, reveals that she is wearing sneakers and the uniform of the Mercy Convent's primary school. A local, then? In a manner of speaking. Julia Frýbert has been coming to Wexford with her parents, both of whom sing with the Prague Chamber Choir, for five years now. Each year she goes to school in the town for the duration of the rehearsal and performance period - almost two months - and now speaks excellent English with, as her mother puts it, "a beautiful Wexford accent".

It is just one of the many remarkable stories which Wexford Festival Opera has produced over its 50 extraordinary years. Turn to the back of the book, where there is a list of every opera ever performed at the festival, and you'll find another: the flowering of Slavic opera in the sunny south-east. In the first 40 years of its existence, just six operas from the Eastern European tradition were given at Wexford: in the last 10, the total rises to 10 - in other words, not a year of the past decade has gone by without a Slavic opera to be found strutting the Wexford stage. It began in 1993 with Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki; then came Anton Rubinstein's The Demon, Rimsky-Korsakov's Mayskaya noch, Fibich's árka, Dargomizhsky's Rusalka, Haas's arlatán, Moniuszko's Straszny Dwór, Tchaikovsky again with Orleanskaya deva, Dvorák's Jakobín and, this year, Bohuslav Martinu's Mirandolina.

Various characters have played leading roles in this ongoing exploration of Eastern opera - from Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policy of perestroika gradually unravelled the iron curtain which had fallen across the European cultural map in the 1940s, to Elaine Padmore, the former artistic director who declared Francesca Zambello's magical 1993 production of Cherevichki to be her festival swansong - and, last but certainly not least, the Prague Chamber Choir under the baton of chorus master Lubomír Mátl, which, at the invitation of Wexford's current artistic director Luigi Ferrari, has formed the backbone of the professional chorus at the festival since 1995.

The 24-strong choir was formed in 1990 by Antonin Peek, who selected many of Prague's finest singers for his new group. Since then, it has appeared with top-flight orchestras all over Europe, appeared at festivals as far afield as Japan and Australia, and notched up an impressive discography on prestigious independent labels such as ECM, Orfeo and Chandos.

Now three of its members, two female, one male, are clattering happily up the wooden stairs of the festival administration building in order to explain themselves to The Irish Times. Martina Strakova says she studied economics before taking up singing with a folkloric ensemble at the age of 23. Jaroslav efrna didn't want to be a singer at all. "I prefer trumpet," he declares, with a broad grin. But the trumpet class at the Prague Conservatory was over-subscribed, so he took up singing instead.

There is a hurried exchange of Czech between the two women, and much embarrassed head-shaking from efrna. "And he is very good," is the translation which finally emerges from Jarmila Zilková, whose husband, chorus member Petr Frýbert, is supposed to be here but mysteriously isn't. Her daughter is the aforementioned Wexford-accented Julia, who is laid up at home with a back-to-school bug.

Zilková herself is no stranger to cross-cultural connections. "I studied first harp, and when I was young I made records with Mary O'Hara," she says. "Then I studied singing at Prague Conservatory." After spells in the Czech Philharmonia Choir and the Radio Symphony Choir, she was invited to join the Prague Chamber Choir - a plum posting, as Strakova is quick to point out. "The chamber music is beautiful. And we travel very much - we see many countries and we work with very good conductors and we meet interesting people." But "home", naturally, is in the outlandishly musical Bohemian city which, Mozart once declared, was the only one which truly understood his music. "We have a small hall in the centre of Prague and every day we have one, two rehearsals," says Zilková.

What - a small hall? Not one of those big baroque buildings we all associate with city-centre Prague? She looks shocked for a second, then erupts into a fit of laughter. "Oh, no - we must pay all ourselves, because we haven't no money from government, so we can't be lazy," she pronounces.

"But we are satisfied with it," adds Strakova, "because we can go where we want, do what we want." efrna nods sagely. "We are," concludes Zilková, "free."

THE freedom is likely to continue, as least as far as government subsidy is concerned; the disastrous flooding in the Czech Republic this summer is likely to put paid to any potential increase in arts funding for the foreseeable future.

Mention of the flooding is greeted with philosophical shrugs. "We live 200, 300 metres from river. Our house was OK," says Zilková. "But it was horrible. Very hard experience. Plenty villages in middle of Czech Republic was under water - it was like big lake.

"And the old town . . ." A chorus of groans emerges from all three singers simultaneously, as if someone had given an invisible signal - "even now the traffic doesn't work, the Metro doesn't work. But one very great thing came after this. Young people who come and work without money, all together, to clean city. It's nice that when we have some really difficult times in Czech Republic, that people come together. Something positive from tragedy."

If laziness is out of the question in Prague, it is scarcely on the agenda at Wexford either. The visiting Czechs will not only serve as chorus members for Mercadante's Il giuramento and Auber's Manon Lescaut - this year's Czech opera, ironically, has no chorus - but will give two concerts of their own as well.

So tell me about the operas, I suggest. There is a major flurry of Czech and a good deal of laughter. "They're very different," offers Strakova.

efrna emits another expressive groan. "The language," he sighs, with a rueful smile. An average day at Wexford is, it seems, something of a multilingual affair. Having dreamed in Czech, you wake up, breakfast in English with your Wexford host family, spend the morning rehearsing in French, and switch to Italian for the afternoon - not to mention a spot of Latin in the course of Bach's Magnificat and Mozart's Coronation Mass, both of which are on the programme for the second of the choir's two concerts. The first will be an all-Czech affair featuring chamber works by Janácek and Dvorák and a mass, the Missa Philadelphiae, by the contemporary composer Jan Novak, who died in 1984.

"I can tell you about this composer," exclaims Zilková, clapping her hands. "I met him when I was a baby. My father played flute in Czech Philharmonic and we are from the same city, Brno. Novak was the last pupil of Martinu, and he is very, very good composer. He wrote beautiful songs called Magic Songs for flute and soprano and - what is this instrument you play like this?" She strums an imaginary skin with her hand. "Yes, tambourine. After Russian occupation, his music was prohibited, but my father did it all during forbidden time - and after, when I was bigger, I sang with my father, and I loved this too much. It brings me close to myfather and so I am very happy."

Closeness to family is obviously a priority in a lifestyle which, for the members of the Prague Chamber Choir, verges on the nomadic. "Yes," agrees Zilková, with another philosophical shrug. "Life and luggage."

Besides their seven weeks at Wexford each autumn, they decamp to the Rossini Festival in Pesaro for six blissful summer weeks every year. "No problem, because it is not so far from Czech Republic," puts in a beaming Strakova. "And, you know," says Zilková, "in summer it's beautiful to stay by sea. Children used to water.

"Although," she adds, indicating the rain-streaked window, "we have plenty water here also . . ."

Wexford Festival Opera opens on Thursday with a performance of Saverio Mercadante's Il giuramento. The Prague Chamber Choir will perform an all-Czech programme, which includes Janácek's The Wolf's Track, Dvorák's Moravian Duets and Novak's Missa Philadelphiae in St Iberius Church on October 26th at 3.30 p.m. and November 11th at 11 a.m. They will be joined by the Wexford Festival Singers, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus and conductor Riccardo Frizza for a performance of Bach's Magnificat and Mozart's Coronation Mass at Rowe St Church on November 3rd at 3.30 p.m. A Remarkable Festival is published by A & A Farmer at €20 in paperback. Full details of this year's festival are on www.wexfordopera.com