FIRST OFF . . .

London theatergoers Thursday morning were singing the praises of the town’s newest musical hit, “Miss Saigon,” which opened the previous night to the tune of a $7.5-million advance ticket sale. And for the most part, London critics found much to like in this retelling of the “Madama Butterfly” story that has been updated and set in Vietnam. “It has the power to move one to tears . . . an evening of shattering dimensions,” wrote Jack Tinker in the Daily Mail. Milton Shulman of the Evening Standard began his review with, “To say they have done it again would be an understatement.” He was referring to producer Cameron Mackintosh, lyricist Alain Boublil and composer Claude-Michel Schonberg, the team that earlier put together the smash hit musical “Les Miserables.” The Guardian’s Michael Billington confessed that he approached a musical about Vietnam with trepidation, but “found an unusually intelligent and impassioned piece of popular theater: revamped Puccini with a sharp political edge.” However, Charles Osborne in the Daily Telegraph found the first half “interminable,” and said the show has “an emptiness at the center.”