THE programme for the opening concert of this year's Bank of Ireland RTE Proms was a thing of shreds and patches whose parts didn't add up to a satisfactory whole. But some of those parts had considerable merit, especially the ones involving the RTE Philharmonic Choir and soprano Mary Hegarty. The choir, currently under the direction of James Cavanagh, offered consistently secure intonation, strong attack and a good blend of voice types. As ferocious in O fortuna as it was tender in Jesu, joy of man's desiring, it was equally telling in legato and rhythmic singing. Only in the excerpt from Rossini's Petite messe solenelle, which was written for much smaller forces, did I detect a degree of ungainliness.

Conducting without baton, Harry Christophers directed fast pieces with verve and good pointing. But this thrusting pulse all but disappeared in the broad tempi he chose for slower music, and his undulating arm movements seemed to cause occasional ensemble problems for the National Symphony Orchestra in Wagner's Die Meistersinger overture. But there were no such problems in a sensibly paced version of Faure's Pavane, where the string tone was quite beautiful.

Thomas Randle and Mary Hegarty were a musically disciplined pair of singers whose voices blended well in the Jose/Micaela duet from Carmen. Mr Randle produced clean runs in Thou shalt break them and displayed a good legato in Panis Angelicus and in the tenor aria from Act Two of Verdi's La traviata, but he was comprehensively outshone in temperament and presence by Ms Hegarty, whose vivid singing of Violetta's scene from the first act of the Verdi opera was matched only by the moving performance of Mozart's Laudate Dominum which she and the choir gave in the first part of the concert.