MASTER OF THE WORD TIM RICE WRITES THE LYRIC THAT MAKES OTHERS' TUNES MEMORABLE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

A couple of decades after bringing Joseph and his dreamcoat-coveting brothers to a comfortable and rather profitable resolution, lyricist Tim Rice found himself back in ancient Egypt, building another pyramid.

At one point, Rice's Egyptian past even collided with the present: the tour of Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's ``Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' was playing in Chicago just as Disney's ``Aida'' - Rice's current musical, also set in Egypt - was conducting its pre-Broadway tryout. In a curious bit of serendipity, ``Dreamcoat's'' Joseph was Patrick Cassidy, who would later play the male lead Radames in the national tour of ``Aida''

For ``Aida'' - playing at the Ahmanson Theater through early January - Rice's partner in music is Elton John. Even after racking up three Oscars, three Tonys and a Grammy, Rice isn't about to fly solo.

``If I could write tunes,'' he says, ``I probably wouldn't work with a partner.''

Wordsmith 

Only those privy to the Tim Rice solo archives will know whether the 57- year-old native of Buckinghamshire, England, is guilty of modesty or a keen self-awareness. Still, nobody is wasting time berating Rice for gaps in his creative output. The less-celebrated half of the writing team behind ``Evita,'' ``Jesus Christ Superstar,'' and ``The Lion King,'' Rice is still one of musical theater's top lyricists.

Maybe he can't write tunes. Then again, if Lloyd Webber and John could handle words...

``It's good if you have two people working on a song,'' continues Rice. ``You have a critic who's usually pretty honest before it goes too far. Often the sum of two people's contributions is, on the whole, greater than the sum of the parts.''

His resume makes the statement a pretty convincing argument. Partnering with Lloyd Webber (on ``Evita,'' ``Superstar,'' ``Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat''), John (``The Lion King,'' ``Aida,'' ``The Road to El Dorado''), Alan Menken (``Aladdin'') and ABBA's Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (``Chess''), Rice has produced some of musical theater and animated films' most popular songs.

The catalog includes the soaring, much-reproduced tones of songs like ``Don't Cry for Me, Argentina,'' ``Circle of Life'' and ``A Whole New World'' to the trickier wit of ``The Art of the Possible'' from ``Evita'' and ``Chess's'' anthem ``One Night in Bangkok.'' Madonna sang ``You Must Love Me,'' a song Lloyd Webber and Rice wrote for the film version, winning an Oscar, while John and LeAnn Rimes recorded ``Written in the Stars'' from ``Aida.''

The reviews haven't always been kind, but Rice takes this in stride as well. ``You get used to it,'' he says of unfavorably reviewed shows, many of which turned out to be blockbusters. ``No one knows anything. Nobody has a clue.''

Working partnership

Even with the two often working a continent apart, the Rice/John pairing on the film ``Lion King'' has proven so successful that Disney reunited the pair again for the stage version of ``Lion King'' and ``Aida.''

``They asked us if we were interested, said they had a team ready to leap,'' Rice says of ``Aida.'' ``I read the story and it struck me as being a very good melodrama that would work well for the musical stage.''

Composer and lyricist fell easily back into their rather unique partnering habits. Rice kicks out a lyric, noodles around on the piano to see how it sings, and sends it off to John - who may often be in another country. When Rice next hears his lyrics, John has supplied his own music and they tend to sound substantially different.

It's not the way Rice worked with past composers, but he likes the ``begin with the words'' process.

``Most composers I work with tend to prefer to have the music first. They'd rather write a tune without restriction,'' Rice said from England, where he was recuperating from an ankle injury that kept him from attending ``Aida's'' L.A. premiere. ``Elton is the other way around, which meant I was able to work closely with the director and book writer, to get plot of songs right.

``Elton has been remarkably uncritical of the lyrics, unlike most composers, and very quick to respond. I've found very few of his musical contributions to be anything but just right.''

Turning a phrase

Fellow composers tend to lavish similar praise on Rice. Mark Mancina, who did the musical arrangements on ``The Lion King,'' calls Rice a gentlemanly collaborator as well as a lyrical mastermind.

``I think Tim goes over a lyric several times; I can see it in his writing and his rhyming of lyrics,'' says Mancina. ``He'll write a line, then have another two or three for that line that will also work.''

And none of them will be simplistic, says Mancina, who confesses he occasionally has to consult a dictionary to decipher a Rice lyric. It's not every composer who will rhyme ``Mufasa'' with ``kielbasa'' or work the clever alliterative play of a line like ``Tea Girls - warm and sweet/Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite.''

``I don't know how he can get words like 'a hint of sycophancy on the side' into a pop song and make it work,'' says Mancina. ``When I write, I try to keep it very simple, but I think he enjoys writing a lyric that maybe has a little double meaning or makes you think.''

The subject matter of Rice's musicals have been all over the map as well, from rocking the Bible to the African pridelands, from a love triangle between a general and two princesses to the rise of Eva Peron. Apart from reviving the Cold War love story ``Chess'' with Andersson and Ulvaeus and writing the second volume to his memoirs, Rice doesn't have plans for anything new. And he doesn't want to start a new project just to be working.

``I think I would be pretty careful about doing anything new unless I felt definitely there was something I wanted to say,'' he says. ``Most people do their best stuff in the early stage of their careers. Then they get tired, repeat themselves and lose their enthusiasm.''

He does not, he adds, expect to fall into this category.

``The songs from 'Aida' like 'Elaborate Lives,' 'The Gods Love Nubia' and 'Not Me' hold up against anything I've done, in my humble opinion,'' he says.

``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.

Tickets: $25 to $75. Call [phone].Lyricist Tim Rice says he likes to get the words down on paper first, then send them along to the music men to add tunes.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Lyricist Tim Rice says he likes to get the words down on paper first, then send them along to the music men to add tunes.

(2) Simone, center, stars in the musical ``Aida,'' through Jan. 5 at the Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles. [phone].