Leonora in a Pinch

The revival of the week was the old story about the diva who was ill and the understudy who stepped in at the last minute and scored a hit. It happened at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House: the diva was bosomy Yugoslav Soprano Zinka Milanov; the understudy, a wispy, 22-year-old New Yorker named Regina Resnik.

Although she had done a good deal of miscellaneous operatic trouping, Soprano Resnik had never sung the taxing lead role of Leonora in Trovatore. Twenty-four hours before curtain time, Manager Edward Johnson offered her the chance. She spent the next morning fitting costumes. Then, in an hour and a half, she learned the stage business. At 4:30 in the afternoon her foresighted mother cooked her a mammoth steak dinner.

Regina Resnik sang Leonora with a big, warm voice, an accurate technique and plenty of self-assurance. Afterward she stayed up all night waiting for the reviews in the late editions of the morning papers. They acclaimed hers as the most promising of all the Metropolitan's debuts this season.

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