Middle-earth meets Toronto in stage performance

TORONTO - Hard-working hobbits, elves and wizards take the battle of good and evil to a stage in downtown Toronto on Saturday when the curtain rises on the first preview of the multimillion-dollar "Lord of the Rings" musical.

The production, drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien's popular stories, will align theatre and a range of musical traditions, including work by Finnish group Varttina and Indian composer A.R. Rahman, to deliver an unprecedented retelling of Tolkien's fantasy classic, producer Kevin Wallace told Reuters.

"In terms of spectacle and visual impact, it is as big as a Vegas show and it's as beautiful as what you'd expect to see in three-dimensional art," said the 48-year-old producer, formerly an in-house producer with Andrew Lloyd Webber's London-based entertainment company The Really Useful Group.

"We've taken Tolkien and found what is appropriate in our art form of theatre and applied it to the story," Wallace added.

Tolkien's trilogy tells the story of Frodo Baggins and his difficult task - saving Middle-earth by destroying the "Ring of Power."

Previews begin on Saturday at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre ahead of a March 23 world premiere - a two day delay to an earlier scheduled preview date to give the team a chance to make final improvements. The show boasts a 55-strong cast, three acts and will run more than three hours.

Wallace said audiences should expect an "emotional journey" of enchanting music, fight scenes, acrobatics and dialogue in English and Elvish, a language Tolkien invented.

"It's not a singing, dancing hobbit show," he said. "The music is completely in tune, moment to moment, with the story in Tolkien. It's almost as if it's injected right into your bloodstream."

It took four years for Wallace -- now backed by producers Saul Zaentz, David and Ed Mirvish, Michael Cohl and others -- to bring Lord of the Rings to the stage. The idea initially bewildered the skeptics, even members of their own team.

Musical supervisor Christopher Nightingale told the Globe and Mail newspaper he initially thought the musical was a "really bad idea." And British director Matthew Warchus confessed he felt it would be "embarrassing, to put something that is so famous as a book and film on the stage and present it with music," according to a report in the National Post.

New Zealand director Peter Jackson broke box-office records and won a string of Oscars with his movie trilogy.

The stage show, which was initially budgeted for C$27 million (NZ$34.2m) but will likely cost more, has netted more than C$15 million in advance sales so far, said Wallace.

It is hoped the show will go to London next and then, if the musical proves to be a "megahit," to Broadway, said Wallace. All this will depend on the imagination of the audience, young and old.

"You have to believe in the jeopardy of the story - the power of darkness and power of the light, and the conflict of the two," said Wallace. "The underlying principle is you have to believe in the power of the ring,"

- REUTERS