Toronto, Feb. 2 (Reuters): 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 said.

“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 producer. “We’ve taken Tolkien and found what is appropriate in our art form of theatre and applied it to the story.”

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 date to make 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 to bring Lord of the Rings to the stage.

Musical supervisor Christopher Nightingale said he had thought the musical was a “really bad idea” and director Matthew Warchus 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”.