London is once again gripped with Ring fever. The sheer audacity of presenting a full Ring cycle at the Proms has caught the imagination of opera lovers with sold out signs going up very quickly and a full complement of Prommers to complete the festive atmosphere. Wagner would surely have approved. Or would he? The composer built his Festival Theatre in Bayreuth with the express purpose of presenting his Ring cycle there - the theatre was revolutionary with its hidden orchestra pit, darkened auditorium and utilitarian seating. But as everyone now testifies the acoustics are well nigh perfect. So to transfer the Ring to the Royal Albert Hall takes some courage.

The forces assembled are however of the highest calibre possible. Conductor Daniel Barenboim is one of the finest exponents of Wagner and has recently been conducting the Ring in Berlin and Milan. The resident orchestra of the Staatsoper unter den Linden, the Staatskapelle Berlin, has been brought to London for these performances and most of the singers for this Rheingold have just sung under Barenboim at Milan's La Scala theatre.

The performance was described as being semi-staged (by Justin Way), although this involved little more than stage managing the singers on and off stage. Perhaps more importantly it meant that the singers performed without a score, theoretically allowing for greater communication between the performers and also the audience, although as it turned out this didn't exactly materialise.

Rheingold is not an easy work to bring off. Much of the opera is conversational in nature as the various factions try to secure control of the gold and the power that goes with it. As is always the case with opera performances at the Proms no surtitles are provided and with less than half of the singers being native German speakers much of the text seemed lost in the vast open spaces of the Royal Albert Hall. The same could be said for characterisations with only a handful of the singers able to project their character effectively into the auditorium.

Nevertheless there are no real weak links in the cast, at least from a vocal point of view. Iain Paterson sings Wotan for the first time and he makes a valiant stab at this complex character singing passionately and with authority, but at this stage his interpretation remains somewhat two dimensional. Johannes Martin Kränzle offers a sinewy, scheming Alberich although a darker, blacker voice would have suited the venue better. Stephan Rügamer's Loge is well sung, but again falls short on characterisation. Peter Bronder makes much of his short appearance as Mime, auguring well for Siegfried. Stephen Milling and Eric Halfvarson are menacing giants, while Jan Buchwald and Marius Vlad are serviceable as Donner and Froh.

On the female side Ekaterina Gubanova is a noble, impassioned Fricka, while Anna Samuil is somewhat squally as Freia. Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya and Anna Lapkovskaja make a mellifluous trio of Rhinemaidens while Anna Larsson delivers her warning from behind the bust of Henry Wood with passionate intensity.

But much seems lost in this performance: the relationship between Wotan and Fricka, the bickering amongst the Gods and with the Giants as they decide what to do, Loge's scheming and any sense of eeriness and scariness in Nibelheim. Wagner developed the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk for a good reason!

But if something is lost dramatically absolutely nothing is lost in terms of orchestral excitement. Barenboim conducts a magisterial performance of the score drawing opulent, incisive and thrilling playing from the Staatskapelle Berlin. His mastery of the score is evidenced by his relaxed style on the podium, often stopping conducting altogether and at times apparently interacting directly with the singers. He has a real sense of the span of the work taking us from the E flat arpeggio at the beginning of the opera to its triumphal end in one gigantic span. The players respond to every nuance required of them and at the end of the day are the real stars of the evening.

Henry Wood looked down as the Gods made their entry into Valhalla and the orchestra brought Rheingold to a tumultuous close. The Proms Ring has begun in resounding fashion.