THOMPSON-PAYNE PICTURES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11879, 15 January 1914, Page 7

THOMPSON-PAYNE PICTURES.

"THE DIAMOND LEAGUE."

Another very large and appreciative audience was present at the ThompsonPayne Theatre last evening, when the Napier Mardi Gras was shown for the last time to a most enthusiastic audience. "The Diamond League" a -1000 foot story of the South African diamond fields, was a most sensational item. Another big feature was "The Rose of Surrey,'' the first release by the new Turncy film Company, from winch our Mr Thompson has made arrangements to accept releases. The story is taken in picturesque surroundings in England, and contains a most interesting story iv which Miss Florence Turner, the noted Vitagraph girl, does, full justice to her powers. "Art or Honour was a fine Lubin domestic rj mance, which was well received. The Victor Company were responsible for a fine feature effort in "The Kidnapped Train," which embraces a sensational railway episode Two items of interest are "Tho Tombs of Ming Empire" and "Fancy Poultry Rearing." Several comedies included "Curate at the Races," "Bloomer Balloons," and "The New Conductor." This programme will be repeated this evening. J. O. WILLIAMSON'S NEW COMIC OPERA COMPANY. "THE COUNT OF LUXEMBOURG." The plot of Franz Lehar's remarkably .successful comic opera, "The : Count of Luxembourg," which is to bepresented for the first time here by the J. C. Williamson's New Comic Opera Company (150 artists) at the Town Hall on' Tuesday night next, mokes the Grand Duke Rutzinov (Robt. Whyte junr.) keen to marry the ravishing prima donna, Angele Didier (Miss Florence Young), but since he is convinced that the Czar will frown on any marriage except with a lady of title, he causes her to first go through a form of marriage with the handsome but penniless Count of Luxembourg (Frank Greene). Bride and bridegroom do not see each other, for in a wedding scene full of comedy a screen is kept between them. The grand-ducal arrangement is that it will be merely a "marriage a Taimable," with a subsequent divorce, but on the day before the divorce the two young people accidentally meet; they fall in love; and so the plot becomes complicated and it.issaidis really interesting right up to the fall of the curtain. Those who look for the melodious flights of Franz Lehar will, it is said, find them, partciularly in the brilliant march with which the first act closes, in the opening chorus in the second act, and in tho sensuous love duet between Miss Young and Frauk Greene, during which the audience will witness the waltz up the stairs of which we have heard quite a lot, and which created a big sensation in London and Australia. A feature of the opera is the introduced dance entitled "Danse Pompenette, '-* presented by Mr Charles Albert and Vlasta Novotna, the Russian dancer, this item, it is said, fairly electrifying audiences in Melbourne recently. "The Count of Luxembourg" can only be staged for one occasion. The box plan will be opened at the Dresden on Saturday morning next, at eight o'clock.