STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 410, 19 July 1928, Page 17

STRAND

“ANNA KARENINA” To-morrow, “Anna Karenina,’* the spectacular story from Count Tolstoy’s immortal novel of the Russia of the Tsars, will commence on its second week of screening at the Strand Theatre. During the past week many thousands of theatre-goers have visited the Strand, and have departed after the screening of the programme, delighted and enthusiastic in their praise of this screen reproduction of the famous novel.

The central theme is the tragic sacrifice of Anna, who deserts husband and child for love, to be pursued by a relentless fate that eventually conquers her. Gorgeous reproductions of Russian palaces and haunts of the mighty are settings for the spectacular film. The story opens when Captain Alexis Vronsky meets a fair lady whose sleigh has been wrecked in the snow. At the Easter service in the capital he meets here again and is shocked to find she is the wife of Karenin, the pompous, conventional Cabinet Minister. Despite every effort on Anna’s part, for she is first and foremost a devoted mother to her little boy, the two fall in love, at a skating party, finding dangerous opportunities in an isolated pavilion, she becomes Vronsky’s mistress. But lie cannot induce her to leave her child, and they bid each other farewell. A very beautiful and gorgeously produced prologue precedes "Anna Karenina.” This is “The Coppelia Ballet” from “Tales of Hoffman,” by Offenbach. Several solo dances in the prologue are exquisitely danced by Mile. Valeska, who takes the part of Swanilda.

The musical programme presented by Eve Bentley is an entertainment in itself, and is composed of many well known Russian musical gems. Tschaikowsky’s famous “Marche Slave” is specially featured as the overture, while included among the incidental music are Karjenoff’s “Nocturne,” “Petite Suite de Concert” (Coleridge Taylor), Brahm’s “Three Songs,” and “Schummerlied” (Schumann).