'AIDA' ALL DRESSED UP WITH NOWHERE TO GO.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

The ancient Egyptians, it may interest you to learn, knew how to vogue a la Madonna.

They also rocked out to the strains of electric guitars, used phrases like ``Dontcha think?'' and, boy howdy, could they put on a display of sartorial splendor (of which more will be said presently).

So ends today's lesson in musical anthropology from the folks at Walt Disney Theatricals, creators of ``Aida.'' On your way out the door, class, would you care to buy a soundtrack, a plush toy, a ``Gods Love Nubia'' souvenir decoder ring?

So cynical, pandering and prepackaged is ``Aida,'' the third of Disney's Broadway-devouring mega-musicals, that it makes the dancing teapots and candelabras of ``Beauty and the Beast'' look like high art. The eely-slick touring version of this Green of the Nile that parked in the Ahmanson on Sunday is as vivid a display of glossed-up puffery as you're likely to find west of Vegas.

Amazing, when you consider who's behind it. Credit Disney for assembling a creative team so pedigreed that even this effort on autopilot could spell critic-proof dollar signs at the box office. Who's going to bet against the likes of director Robert Falls, choreographer Wayne Cilento, designer Bob Crowley, the musical team of Elton John and Tim Rice, and authors David Henry Hwang and Linda Woolverton? Even without original cast members Heather Headley and Adam Pascal, non-Broadway audiences lose nothing with the substitutions of Patrick Cassidy and Simone. Heaven knows these folks are capable of mounting a spectacle.

And yet ...

And yet, visually gorgeous and strongly voiced though it is (especially by Simone), ``Aida'' is lots of money badly spent, as empty of substance as a cracked water jug. Things do not bode well when the shiniest jewel in Elton John's score, a bouncy number called ``My Strongest Suit,'' is a song that serves no dramatic function whatsoever. It's an excuse to put on a fashion show displaying the most garish frippery on an ancient Egyptian catwalk. (Yes, the Egyptians had that, too.)

At the Ahmanson, Sherman Oaks' own Kelli Fournier tears into ``My Strongest Suit'' with va-va-voom gusto, and she still manages to get herself upstaged by an enormous hat. Apparently that's the Faustian pact you make when you sing in a Disney musical. Your voice may sound great, but you'll be inside a hyena puppet or dressed like a human lava lamp while you're singing.

Back to our vandalized Verdi. Fournier plays Princess Amneris, the fashion-loving Pharaoh's daughter destined for Egypt's throne. She's the third side of a love triangle between soldier Radames (Cassidy) and Aida (Simone), the Nubian slave he captures and gives to Amneris as a gift. Not much of a choice, really. Aida is beautiful, principled and regal, which makes sense because she's a princess herself. Amneris - to whom Radames has been betrothed for nine years - is a self-absorbed ditz. Even with the fate of Egypt hanging in the balance, who would you pick?

Of course, things are supposed to be more complicated than free will. As Radames' father, Zoser (Neal Benari), schemes to get the throne, enslaved Aida looks for ways to help her captured countrymen. Radames may be just the ticket, except she's falling for the hunky captain. Hey, they didn't start out by calling this musical ``Elaborate Lives'' for nothing.

Except there is nothing elaborate or complicated about Aida's moral universe. The political menace is cartoonish and largely off-stage (although we do witness a murder). Even though poor Aida and Radames are more star-crossed than Romeo and Juliet, a prologue set in a modern-day museum assures us the pair is still going to get a happy ending. Cassidy and Simone earnestly sell ballad after love-struck ballad, but there's no occasion for throat lumps.

Simone's best opportunity to display her considerable talent comes when the love story is shoved aside and the material turns vaguely patriotic. Visiting her fellow slaves in what looks like a refugee camp, Simone makes splendid work of the gospel-laced ``The Gods Love Nubia'' and ``The Dance of the Robe.'' These are songs which, through their up-tempo political patriotism, have vague echoes of some of Rice's lyrical work some 20 years ago in ``Evita.''

``Aida'' can have that effect on a person: It makes a musical-theater lover remember the early - and better - credits of the creative team. A year ago, on this very stage, director Falls and Brian Dennehy brought an auditorium to its knees with a towering ``Death of a Salesman.'' Even now, across the plaza at the Mark Taper Forum, author David Henry Hwang has brought relevance, heft and joy to a new version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ``Flower Drum Song.'' Even Disney's own ``The Lion King,'' still chugging along a few miles away at the Pantages, is an example of live drama's wonderful possibilities.

And ``Aida?'' Well, to borrow a fashion-loving lyric from Amneris: ``Whether wig or hat or turban/Whether clad boudoir or urban/Not to strut your stuff outrageously is a crime.''

``AIDA''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave. Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through Jan. 5, 2002.

Tickets: $25 to $75. Call [phone].

Our rating: One and one half stars