Michael Dervan was in the University Concert Hall in Limerick for a performance by the National Youth Orchestra.

NYO/Alexander Anissimov

University Concert Hall, Limerick

Das Rheingold ................Wagner

The six harps at the front of the stage at University Concert Hall on Monday were like an emblematic presence, reminding everyone there of the sheer scale of the National Youth Orchestra's project to bring Wagner's Ring cycle to audiences in Limerick and Birmingham.

Preparing four operas which run to over 14 hours of music, with performances spread over six days, is a heftier schedule than any of our professional opera providers have undertaken recently. And the question on people's lips - can it possibly come off? - can now, after Monday's performance of Das Rheingold, be answered with a resounding yes.

Nerves, it has to be admitted, got the better of the famously protracted E flat major opening which depicts the depths of the Rhine, and there were other moments when fingers and lips faltered momentarily. But the edgy start was soon forgotten with the entry, up in one of the side balconies, of the full-voiced trio of Rhinemaidens (Franzita Whelan, Emer McGilloway, and Colette McGahon).

You might expect a concert performance of Wagner, with the high spirits of young musicians at play, most of them surely working on the music for the first time, to have turned into an orchestrally-dominated occasion. Not at all. It was the singers' night. And, among the singers, it was the night of Loge, god of fire, whose deal-making and detached manipulation were conveyed by Volker Vogel with penetrating, insinuating acuity.

The Wotan of Frode Olsen was unimposing, his position as ruler of the gods weak, his resistance to the implorations of his wife Fricka (Suzanne Murphy) token, his dependence on Loge complete.

Against the wiles of the malevolent dwarf Alberich (Rolf Haunstein), whose curse on the power-endowing ring drives everything that follows, or the menace of the giant Fasolt (Tomasz Konieczny), who Wotan wants to cheat, this ruler clearly posed no threat.

Conductor Alexander Anissimov mapped out the bigger picture of the score with ease, and his young players, with Michael D'Arcy as guest leader for the project, responded well to most of the grander moments, going out in a blaze of glory after the most striking vocal pronouncement of the evening, when the Earth goddess Erda (Leandra Overmann) delivered her warning of bad things to come with riveting force.