BY WARREN BOROSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Patrice Munsel was the youngest singer ever to appear in a major role at the Metropolitan Opera House. At the age of 17, on Dec. 3, 1943, she debuted as Philine in “Mignon.”

On Sunday night, Feb. 20, Miss Munsel, now 85, was interviewed in a room at Lincoln Center, and it became immediately clear that despite her age she’s quick-witted and lively. As she sipped from a bottle of water she said, “I just wish this were vodka.”

She was interviewed, by author Brian Kellow, after an exceedingly rare showing of the 1953 film, “Melba.”

Years ago, when Miss Munsel first read the movie’s script, she related, she wept; she was so deeply disappointed that it portrayed Melba as someone “nice, someone out of a Jane Powell movie.” (Miss Powell happens to be a dear friend of hers, Munsel added.) And, as she noted in her talk, there wasn’t much of a plot. (Peter G. Davis, in “The American Opera Singer,” writes that the film, “a box office disaster in 1953, effectively marked the end of Hollywood’s interest in opera stars.”)

When she was a child growing up in Spokane, Wash., Munsel mentioned, she liked to whistle; her parents sent her to a whistling teacher — possibly the only one in Seattle, if not the entire world. Apologizing that her mouth was dry, and that she was wearing too much lipstick, she began to whistle. After an effort…wow! The audience gasped at the trills.

Miss Munsel used the word “bitch” three times in describing Melba. (Accurately. Dame Nellie once shoved John McCormack, the Irish tenor, off the stage when he dared try to take a bow with her; she once boasted, “I am Melba. I sing whenever and whatever and wherever I want to.” Asked by another singer what music to sing to an Australian audience, she supposedly replied, “Sing ‘em muck.”)

The film itself, in Technicolor, was somewhat faded, with occasional glitches. The first part was smooth — Melba persuades the famous singing teacher, Mathilde Marchesi, to take her on as a student; the last half, where Nellie’s husband leaves her because he realizes that her career comes first, dragged. (Actually, he seems to have objected to her adultery.) But we got to see Miss Munsel in a variety of roles, from Lucia to Carmen. And as an actress she acquitted herself with honor.

The film featured a number of famous British actors: Robert Morley as Oscar Hammerstein, the lyricist’s grandfather, who opened an opera house to compete with the Met; Martita Hunt as Merchesi (she was Miss Haversham in David Lean’s production of Dickens’ “Great Expectations”); and Sybil Thorndike as Queen Victoria (Shaw wrote “Saint Joan” with her in mind).

Martita Hunt, grumpy, and always pictured in a wheelchair under a blanket, actually had a teakettle full of gin under the blanket, Miss Munsel revealed. The shootings with her had to be done in the morning, while the kettle was still rather full.

“Princess Pat,” as she was known, mentioned that Melba liked tall men, and she herself had married someone 6 feet 4. “Big is good,” she said.

Munsel had four children – and they helped make her a happy woman, unlike those opera stars, she said, who sacrificed a possible family to their careers.

The audience consisted of mainly women, along with some people who believe that “brava” is what you shout to a female opera singer. (You shout “bravo” to both a man and to a woman.)

A question someone asked: Did the Met object to her singing outside of the Met, the way it had to Helen Traubel (who sang with Jimmy Durante)? No, she replied. The Met, she said, just wanted to dump Traubel. (Munsel went on to shine in popular operettas like “Die Fledermaus” and remained with the Met until 1958; later she appeared in summer stock, regional theaters, and even in Las Vegas.)

She told about the time Enrico Caruso, a cutup, was singing with Melba in “La Boheme,” and the soprano sang the famous aria about her tiny hand’s being cold. Caruso then slipped a hot sausage into her hand.

After the evening came to a close, I checked with Kellow and learned that the interview had indeed been taped. Then, timidly, I went over to Miss Munsel. I told her that Ernest Newman, the great English critic, had said that Nellie Melba’s voice was “uninterestingly perfect and perfectly uninteresting.” She laughed – and replied if she had known that, she would have shared it with the audience.

I also mentioned that there’s another film about Melba, with Evelyn Laye and Conchita Supervia, called “Evensong.” Princess Pat said she’d have someone get her a copy. (It’s the only film appearance of the legendary Supervia.)

Earlier on, the diva told a story that brought down the house.

Toscanini was rehearsing a Wagnerian opera with the Norwegian soprano, Kirsten Flagstad. Things were not going well. So Toscanini – who was much shorter than Flagstad – went over to her, put his hands on her chest, and said, “Mama mia, if only these were brains!”