GILBERT

In a career spanning seven decades, she performed first in opera and then in many of Ivor Novello's musicals in London's West End. After the First World War, Gilbert sang contralto and mezzo-soprano roles with the Carl Rosa Opera Company for more than a decade. She moved into musical theatre in 1935, appearing in Novello's Glamorous Night. She also had roles in his Careless Rapture (1936), Crest of the Wave (1937), The Dancing Years (1939), Arc de Triomphe (1943), Perchance to Dream (1945) and King's Rhapsody (1949).