The Barber of Seville is the Savoy Opera company's first production

Savoy Opera is the capital's first new full-scale opera company for 75 years. All tickets cost less than �50 with The Barber of Seville its first production.

Co-founder Raymond Gubbay said it was aimed at West End theatre fans put off by the "aura of serious opera".

But music critic Michael White said it would reduce audiences for English National Opera and the Royal Opera.

Smaller

Savoy Opera will stage popular operas such as Carmen, the Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute.

It is based at the Savoy Theatre, on London's Strand, which has 1,100 seats - about half that of the nearby Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

To bring down costs of staging full operas, it will employ younger, home-grown performers whose voices it says will be more suited to the smaller venue.

Australian singer Sally Wilson plays Rosina in The Barber of Seville

Savoy Opera's top ticket price of �50 compares to the �170 at the Royal Opera House and �85 at the English National Opera.

Music critic Michael White told BBC Radio 4: "Savoy Opera will certainly damage the English National Opera because the casual tourist trade will be lured in."

London's existing opera companies need "standard repertory opera" trade to fund their "less standard operas", he said.

"Raymond Gubbay can never be a substitute for that."

Mr Gubbay, a theatre impresario who co-founded Savoy Opera with producer Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen, denied it posed a threat.

"I cannot see how a little theatre on the corner of the Strand can compete with a huge opera house," Mr Gubbay said.