Rosangela Scalabrino (born 31 May 1950), known professionally as Gilda, is an Italian singer. She won the Sanremo Music Festival 1975 with the song "Ragazza del sud".

Life and career

A native of

Masserano Masserano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Biella in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about northeast of Biella. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,315 and an area of .All demographi ...

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

, Gilda started her career as the vocalist in a local band. After failing to qualify in a previous edition of the festival, she debuted at the 25th edition of the

Sanremo Music Festival The Sanremo Music Festival ( ), officially the Italian Song Festival (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria, organized and broadcast by (RAI). It is the longest-running ...

and won the competition with a song composed by herself, "Ragazza del sud", which was heavily criticized for its anti-feminist lyrics and its negative portrayal of

Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

.Fabrizio Zampa. "Gilda". Gino Castaldo (edited by). ''Dizionario della canzone italiana''. Curcio Editore, 1990. After a few further singles, Gilda got married and started managing a hotel in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, abandoning the show business industry except for a few occasional live performances.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilda Italian pop singers Italian women singers 1950 births Living people People from the Province of Biella Sanremo Music Festival winners