Back in 1997, when animated musical feature film Anastasia was released, rumours about the last Russian Tsar’s youngest daughter having escaped the Bolshevik hit squad were still vaguely plausible.

However, when the musical adaptation premiered on Broadway in 2017, a decade had passed since the final two bodies of the murdered imperial family had been discovered and confirmed by DNA testing.

If this historically informed musical’s songs were more memorable, if its book and lyrics were less weighed down by exposition, and if the romance wasn’t so perfunctory, the fact that Anastasia died in 1917 probably wouldn’t be such a nagging thought throughout its two hours (plus interval).

Despite transporting digital projections, beautiful costumes and, for its Australian debut season, some powerful singing, Anastasia doesn’t ever manage to sweep us away to the land of fairytales, where it’s easy to suspend disbelief.

Georgina Hopson in Anastasia – The Musical. Photo © Jeff Busby

This is surprising given its musical royalty DNA: composer Stephen Flaherty, playwright Terrence McNally and lyricist Lynn Ahrens have won many major awards, including for their earlier collaboration, Ragtime. Tellingly, the only Tony win for the Broadway production of Anastasia was for digital projections.

After a prologue that sees Anastasia as a child in the imperial court, the story begins in earnest in 1927 on the hardscrabble streets of Leningrad. Dmitry and Vlad are trying to find a woman they can pass off as the legendary Anastasia, and claim a reward from the exiled Dowager Empress.

They chance upon amnesiac Anya, whose memories begin to return under their influence; it’s soon clear to the audience she is actually Anastasia. The trio head to Paris in pursuit of imperial riches, and also to flee Soviet officer Gleb.

This character is equally unconvincing as a villain and second love interest, while the romance between Anya/Anastasia and Dmitry is given little oxygen. This makes the show’s ending, which tries to defy Disney princess convention, all the more difficult to believe or feel satisfied by.

Robert Tripolino and Georgina Hopson in Anastasia – The Musical. Photo © Jeff Busby

Opening in Melbourne at the suitably opulent old Regent Theatre, the Australian cast is led by Georgina Hopson, who has a powerful voice and girl-scout presence. Big numbers such as Once Upon a December, in which Anya/Anastasia expresses doubts and yearnings about her identity, would benefit from a little more delicacy and dreaminess.

Apart from a few moments of imperfect legato, Robert Tripolino is pleasant enough as Dmitry, whose trajectory from slightly roguish lad to fine young man is underwritten. There’s little chemistry between Hopson and Tripolino, probably because they aren’t given much fuel; an exception is pretty duet In a Crowd of Thousands.

Joshua Robson reveals a mighty, potentially very persuasive voice as Gleb, but it’s a role with few rewards. Rodney Dobson brings rare charm and lightness to the show as Vlad – especially when his character’s old flame, Countess Lily, appears in Act II. She is played by Rhonda Burchmore with signature sassiness.

Their jolly duet, The Countess and the Common Man, as well as Burchmore’s Land of Yesterday and the ensemble number Paris Holds the Key, kick off the second act with plenty of jazzy fun; it’s in stark contrast to the first act’s often samey, mostly forgettable songs. The second act also benefits from the gentle gravitas of Nancye Hayes as the Dowager Empress.

Eleanora Flynn and Nancye Hayes in Anastasia – The Musical. Photo © Jeff Busby

Alexander Dodge’s simple set design of monumental framing architecture and the occasional addition of large glass doors is brilliantly adapted to numerous locations by Aaron Rhyne’s video design. Projected on a large scale, it whisks us from palace to drab street, forbidding office to blossomy grove.

This imagery plays with perspective, impressively so on a train ride, but gets carried away showing off the Eiffel Tower, and at times the grand scale makes its digital creation glaringly obvious.

Donald Holder’s lighting is also key to the show’s ability to transport the audience through time, place and mood, including with a recurring ghostly imperial ball. Peggy Hickey’s choreography draws on the past, notably 1920s Paris jazz hands and legs, traditional Cossack leaps and a Swan Lake pastiche, but like so much of Anastasia it’s often by the numbers.

Linda Cho’s costumes dazzle during scenes at the imperial court and Paris’s Palais Garnier for a night at the ballet, and Anastasia’s grand finale red gown and tiara is the stuff that dreams are made of. For her first scene in Paris, however, when history tells us Anastasia would be in her mid-20s, the somewhat matronly look of her costume is compounded by the accompanying wig. Unlike the modish Marcel waves of the women around her, it looks like a conservative 1950s do, and awkwardly ages Hopson.

While Anastasia mostly succeeds in looking like a lovely fairytale musical, and occasionally sounds like one, it’s ultimately bogged down in details and dreary songs, underwritten characters and a lack of romance. For all its defiance of historical fact, this show can’t quite rise above reality.

Anastasia – The Musical plays at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne until 20 February before touring to  Crown Theatre, Perth (from 3 March), Sydney Lyric Theatre (from 7 April) and the Festival Theatre, Adelaide (from early August)