OPERA HOUSE PICTURES

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1347, 20 June 1911, Page 5

OPERA HOUSE PICTURES

There was the usual change of programme at the Opera House last night when fchera was a good audience. Among other pictures were a Bplendid ii'ssauav Western drama entitled "The Silent Message," "A Fire in Moscow," ' The Prioe of Victory," a Napoleonic drama in whioh martial glory and death was balanced against parental attachaent and humanity, and several oomics of merit as mirth provokers. An innovation which resolved itself into a star turn was Professor Bsrrafs' exhibition of marionettes combined with ventriloquism. They included an excellent marionette act which suggested "Fou the Noo," also an acrobatic display, a dandeus9, a singer, the mapetio skeleton which performs weird decapitations and 'disintegrations, a figure of a Sultan which suddenly collapses into six mnrionetteß, which in turn perform feats. In every case the manipulation of the figures was superb and it was extremely difficult to dissooiate some impish self centred individuality and powors of volition from the figures themselves. To see marionettes preforming feats in whioh every movement was a faithfal reproduction of the movements of the variety stars, at times oaused one to marvel at the oontroL exeroised over these figures by means of the operating wires. Professor Earrasb appears for a few nights and will'from time to time ohauge„ his programme.