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For Patrice herself, the future could hardly look brighter. Says Boss Bing: "If Munsel accepts the fact that she has a specific role to fill at the Metropolitan, and fills it as brilliantly as I have every belief she will, I would think about reviving operas that have good roles for her." And Europe still presents a challenge. Four years ago she went on a concert tour of Scandinavia, but she has yet to sing opera abroad. Europe will not think her a beauty. One European musician describes her thus: "Fairly tall, slender, and has a pleasant horse face, like a clean-cut American college girl." And Europe has heard better voices. But everyone likes life—and Patrice Munsel has a lot of that. Among other things, she would like to try her Fledermaus Adele—in German—on the Viennese.
She also has one warm eye on television. At first she was wary: "I televised like a plate of worms." Since then she has learned how to make up. She has done several operatic bits on TV, and recently had herself a good time alongside Milton Berle, whose art she candidly admires. After her TV bits, people all over town, including the doorman at her apartment-hotel, tell her they caught the show. "Where else," asks Patrice Munsel, "can you get an audience quite like that?"
* Patrice was offered the role of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific when Mary Martin left the show, but turned it down because she would have had to sing it for a year. She also turned down a lead in Broadway's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, "because I didn't want to scrub floors for a year." * Nonmusicians define a coloratura voice as one that plays musical chairs among all the right notes without ever sitting down. * Marion Talley was five months younger when she made her debut as Gilda.