$120,000 Voice

Nobody has ever played the game of U.S. concert management with a shrewder gambler's eye than pudgy, Russian-born Sol Hurok of Manhattan. Last week Hurok gambled $120,000 on one of the longest and prettiest shots of his career. She was a pert, dark-haired, 18-year-old coloratura soprano named Patrice Munsel. For his $120,000, Hurok got the rights to Patrice's concert and radio appearances for three years. On an operatic filly who has not yet run her maiden race, that was tall betting.

Patrice Munsel has a contract to sing this winter with Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera (she won the Met Auditions of the Air last spring). But after that,

Hurok will take over her reedy, agile soprano, fluent in French, Italian and English, primed with at least ten big-time opera roles. And he can be counted on to feature the face behind the voice.

Patrice is as choice a bloom as any in the recent bevy of young sopranos. Only child of a Spokane, Wash., dentist, Patrice made her first splash six years ago when she sang before the Spokane Citizens' Club. Before she was 14 she had become a ballet and tap dancer, and an expert in what she calls "artistic whistling." For the past three years she has lived in Manhattan with her mother, who holds her to a strict daily routine: 10:30 to noon, voice lesson; 1 to 3, operatic coaching; 3 to 4, Italian lesson; 4 to 5, French lesson; 5 to 6, another voice lesson. At 6 Patrice is entitled to dinner. Her favorite dish: pickled herring with an onion on an apple.

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