Artists appropriate other artists’ work all the time. But Elton John’s new “Aida” is “interested in only the story of the opera’s libretto and turns it into a typical Broadway spectacle. John contributes generic pop songs about generic emotions, not music crafted to unique character and theatrical situations.” Ditto John Corigliano’s reworking of Bob Dylan. ” ‘Tambourine Man’ and ‘Aida’ are not reinterpretations so much as impoverished appropriations. They are less creative borrowings than desperate theft.” – Los Angeles Times