Lasting magic or a puff of smoke?

AT times during the intense four years he saw through development of “The Lord of the Rings,” Kevin Wallace felt not unlike the wizard Gandalf troubleshooting myriad obstacles on the way to realizing his dream.

“I think we always knew that there would be a tremendous amount of curiosity and skepticism about this ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” says the 48-year-old producer. “But if you’re going to take it on, then you have to create something as classic and timeless as the books themselves.”

For Wallace, a former actor and in-house producer for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, that goal hangs in the balance as the world’s press and theater critics descend on Toronto for the Thursday opening of the $23-million “Lord of the Rings” musical. The advance for the show stands at about $12 million, respectable but no juggernaut.

But the opening, Wallace says, will be just the starting gun for the rollout of a massive marketing campaign that he hopes will keep the show running at the Princess of Wales Theatre for at least nine months and as long as 18.

He maintains that the exclusivity of the engagement helps: There are no plans for another production until the London premiere in late spring 2007, and a North American production would begin touring in fall 2008 at the earliest.

That schedule proved seductive to the Canadian government, which has invested $2.5 million in the show, an unprecedented, if risky, public-private partnership. It sees “LOTR” as part of a bid to reclaim Toronto’s position as a prime theater tryout town, which it lost to Chicago in the wake of the SARS scare and post-Sept. 11 tourism slump. There have been other incentives to draw on -- union breaks as well as a pool of talent.

“It’s been a valuable relationship,” Wallace says. “Our general manager, Charlotte Wilcox, has told me that it would have cost $30 million to mount this on Broadway.”

Since its beginning Wallace has viewed “Lord of the Rings” as a global enterprise, using extensive research and development to ensure he could deliver a spectacle. “We spent 1.2 million pounds ($2.08 million) on that alone,” he recalls. The R&D; progressed in tandem with readings and workshops in London, where Wallace has lived since he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after a stint at the prestigious Abbey Theatre in his native Ireland.

Now that the show is up and running, his attention has turned to audience responses to the production. Because the show does not hew to the traditions of the “musical,” Wallace says, a portion of the audience has been thrown off. “We’ve learned that we’ve got some educating to do,” he says. “On the other hand, people who are coming for the event of ‘Lord of the Rings,’ who love the Tolkien books, don’t care at all whether it’s a musical or not, they’re just coming to see it on stage. We are getting -- and will continue to get -- a lot of people who hate musicals, who are coming to the theater for the first time.”

Wallace himself eschews the “musical” label in favor of “a storytelling epic.” But at the same time he hopes the show will be a staple for future generations. He acknowledges there’s nothing modest about his aim. What he hopes to achieve is nothing less than creating a durable stage classic. “That’s the legacy I’m after,” he says, “leaving something of worth behind after I’m a pile of dust.”