LETTERS.

GIFT TO JOHN ASHCROFT

I enjoy Waylon and Willie and the boys just about as much as anyone does. However, to compare this crew's music with opera when debating the merits of the National Endowment of the Arts subsidies is to tread on the terrain of the nincompoop. There is so much wrong with Mr. Ashcroft's picture that one could produce a letter the size of the Manhattan phone book. I will only briefly say that the marvelous work of good folks such as Beverly Sills and Frederica von Stade (and so very many others) in bringing classical music to our inner-city youngsters, giving them glorious "food for the soul" and an immersion in an art that truly elevates us to the spiritual plane, is -- in my estimation -- beyond reproach.

I guess attorney general-designate Ashcroft does not recognize that there is indeed music that delivers one to the angelic spheres. And we cram five of us into a 1994 Geo when we drive to New York City Opera to be transported to heaven.

Several years ago, then-Senator Ashcroft made a few statements regarding women's issues that were so uninformed and ludicrous that I was moved to send him a year's gift subscription to Ms. Magazine. You may be assured, good people, in 2001 he will have the gift of OPERA NEWS (and enlightenment!) from me!

Mrs. Helen Bill Casey Locust Valley, NY

THE POWER OF APRILE

Thank you for your interesting interview of soprano Aprile Millo ["Old School Ties," by Ira Siff, Feb.]. I have been wanting to know more about her for years. She has one of those rare contemporary voices (a shadow of the past?) that have the power to really ...