A collaboration between Opera Ireland, Mountjoy Prison and an Italian jail is leading up to a novel production. Rosita Boland reports

Four men are sitting in the shed of a concrete workshop round the mould of a garden table, talking about La Bohème, an opera they've seen on video. "It would be all right if you could keep the mute button on," one quips, and the others laugh. At the door of the shed, rows of concrete frogs and gnomes are lined up neatly. A little further away again, dozens of mis-kicked footballs lie like strings of beads, caught among a tangled net of razor wire that tops every wall in the vicinity. This is Mountjoy Prison, and the yard where these men usually work with concrete has been taken over by the set they are constructing for a production of Puccini's La Bohème.

Mountjoy and opera are not two things you tend to associate with each other. But ever since the beginning of the summer, a cohort of Mountjoy prisoners, both male and female, have been working on sets and costumes that will be seen in November on the Gaiety stage in Opera Ireland's production of La Bohème.

Mountjoy has staged several productions in the past, but all of them have been internal projects. This is something quite different: a three-way collaboration between Opera Ireland, Mountjoy, and Maiano, a maximum security prison in Perugia, Italy. Prisoners at Maiano have been working on drawings and designs for sets and costumes, and their Mountjoy counterparts are now making them.

Italian designer Porzia Addabbo had been working with Maiano for some time, and a video she made of the creative work done by prisoners there in 2004 attracted the attention of Mountjoy. The two prisons decided to work together with Opera Ireland, and thus for the last few months, Addabbo and her colleague Michele Zualdi, have been dividing their time between Italy and Ireland, supervising and guiding the prisoners' work.

In the yard of the concrete-workshop, a garret is being constructed. This is the set for the first act of La Bohème; vast pillars and windows. It fills the entire yard, and has to be moved inside each night. Right now, it's being sanded down prior to painting. Two of the four men on a break in the shed have seen a video of La Bohème. Truth to tell, they're not impressed. "It wasn't in English, so what was the point?" one says.

"I was more interested in looking at the construction work, and how they put the sets together than at the actors or listening to the singers," another admits frankly.

They may not have much time for classical music or the actual performance, but every one of them is fired up about where they fit into the opera. "When an opportunity like this comes along in prison, you jump at it," one says. "It's something different." Some of them have had previous experience working in trades; industrial painting and construction. They've all learned more skills from Zualdi, and have also learned from each other.

Due to the transient nature of prison life, the number of people working on this project has changed over time. There are currently 15 prisoners, 11 men and four women, involved. The men divide their time between the construction and painting work outside, and the carpentry workshop inside, where the sets, props and furniture are made. The women are working on costumes, in their separate prison. Were none of the men interested in trying a hand at sewing? There's a short, shocked silence, and then bellows of laughter. "If you said you wanted to do costumes in this place, people would be talking about you!"

The carpentry workshop is in the basement of Mountjoy. Several chairs and tables, which will be used in cafe scenes, are finished and waiting to be painted. This is where all the pieces of the set were made and cut out, before being assembled outside: the finished sets are too big to fit under the low ceilings or to be moved through the small doorframes of the Victorian prison.

TWO MEN WORKING on the carpentry take a break to talk. "It's different work; it's artistic," one says. "I know how to paint houses but this is different. When you paint a house, you're given a colour and that's it; one colour in the wall. But you could be mixing the paint six, seven times, playing around with colours before you get it right for a set, because of the shade and light and all that."

At the women's prison, four women, along with facilitator Wilma Warner-O'Keefe, are working away in the sewing room. "There may be only four of us, but we're a team of four working like 20 people!" one declares.

Opera Ireland is doing a modern version of La Bohème, which has been updated to 1970s Paris. Many of the costumes are finished, and they hang on two rails at side of the room, reminders of the era of bell-bottoms, huge lapels and flared skirts. Why did they want to participate in the project?

"There are plenty of things you can do in Mountjoy - classes, school, photography, all kinds of things. This is outside the system, if you like," one says. "We feel guilty enough already being inside here. The likes of this project, something not part of the usual prison schedule, keeps our minds off things. It's different."

They all had basic sewing skills, and those who knew how to operate the machines and cut patterns shared their knowledge with the others. They've listened to a music recording of La Bohème, and described what they thought of it.

"Love and emotion."

"Loud music."

"The music is wonderful, but why does there have to be singing?"

They realised only a couple of weeks ago that the costumes they had been working on for months were going to be on stage in the Gaiety, and later, in Italy. It's not because they hadn't been told: it simply didn't sink in, because it wasn't relevant to their day-to-day lives. While they admit to excitement now, they're unfazed about sewing for big public performances. One woman tries to explain: "It's happening on the outside, so to us, it doesn't really make any difference what it is, or where it is, because we won't be seeing it for ourselves anyway. Not in the Gaiety, anyway, but hopefully we'll see a video afterwards."

"A prison is a prison at the end of the day," one woman says. "But there is talent in here too, and this is a way of showing the public that. There should be more projects like this."

La Bohème runs at the Gaiety Theatre on Nov 18, 20, 22, 24 and 28, www.operaireland.com