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Fremstad was not forced by financial needs to offer her costumes for sale last week. She seemed loathe to break her collection even for the Museum of the City of New York or the Metropolitan Opera, both avid for her famed Isolde costume. Most passe singers are more pathetic than impressive. But Fremstad defied pity when she stood among her relics. She wears pince-nez now. Her greying hair is piled high on her head. But the grand manner was still hers when a reporter queried her about the Elsa mantle, asked its age. Her eyes snapped then as they did at the opera house: ''What difference does it make? It is Elsa, Elsa, Elsa! It lives its own life!''