Word: gildas
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Died. Mimi Benzell, 47, Metropolitan Opera soprano turned successful Broadway, TV and nightclub singer; of cancer; in Manhasset, N.Y. Making her Met debut at age 21 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute, she won acclaim for such roles as Gilda in Rigoletto and Musetta in La Boheme before moving to Broadway, where she starred in the long-running musical Milk and Honey...
...that lady? Why, the siren of Gilda, Salome and Miss Sadie Thompson, Rita Hayworth, now a matronly 50, and conducting an NBC-TV interview in her Beverly Hills manse...
Overburdened with social significance and sloppy syntax, Trap is chiefly notable for the appearance in a secondary role of onetime glamour girl Rita Hayworth. Rita, frequently cast opposite Ford since they co-starred in Gilda in 1946, plays a frowzy, pathetic old flame who knows the rackets but preserves all her secrets in booze. Puffy, plainspoken, her veneer meticulously scraped away, Rita at 47 has never looked less like a beauty, or more like an actress...
...displayed impeccable pitch, remarkably even control, and all the agility necessary for the coloratura turns and trills of her role. Moreover, with the aid of a face and figure far more appealing than operagoers are accustomed to, she brought rare poignancy and passion to the incredibly motivated role of Gilda (although the Duke has just ditched her for another girl, she sacrifices her life to save his from the hired bandit, Sparafucile). The Met audience, taken by surprise, gave Soprano D'Angelo several ovations, most notably after her ecstatic...
...when she was three on a radio child-talent show, spent the next several years studying tap dancing and piano. By the time she was 17, she realized that she was a better singer than tap dancer, in 1950 embarked for Italy to study, made her operatic debut (as Gilda) at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome when she was 24. On that occasion she had with her the good-luck charm she had at the Met last week-a toy cat whose beneficent influence has consistently triumphed over audiences, if not over Sparafucile...