Here comes the Soleil

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LAS VEGAS -- In Las Vegas, "LOVE" is all you need.

At least, that's what Cirque du Soleil hopes as their $150-million show featuring the music of the Beatles settles in at the Mirage. It might be more accurate to say Cirque is all you need. After all, "LOVE," which opened June 30, brings to five the number of permanent Cirque shows in Sin City.

How a small circus from French Canada took over Las Vegas is anybody's guess. But "LOVE" may be the troupe's most savvy move yet. In tapping into a cultural phenomenon still going strong after more than four decades, Cirque finally has a show with heart -- and a guaranteed audience.

The greatest rock band ever broke up in 1970. John Lennon was shot in 1980; George Harrison died in 2001. But Beatlemania never completely disappeared.

Mr. Lennon's drawings tour the world; they just stopped in Alexandria. A film, "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," opens this fall. The Washington Ballet premiered "The Bach/Beatles Project" in May. Ringo Starr played Vegas' Mandalay Bay the night after "LOVE" opened. And Paul McCartney's recent 64th birthday -- musically prefigured long ago by his "When I'm 64" and shadowed by his recent marital split -- was treated as front page news.

With reporters stepping over each other on the red carpet before the "LOVE" premiere and women screaming a few yards away, it almost felt like 1964.

"It's uncanny," Mr. McCartney replied to this reporter's question about the new young fans the band enjoys every generation.

Dominic Champagne, "LOVE's" director, argues songs like "Hey Jude" and "Strawberry Fields" have the same staying power as Homer's "Odyssey."

"LOVE" brings the Beatles' songs to life. An international cast of 60 acrobats, actors, and dancers create a series of tableaux in a loose narrative: from the Blitz to the American Vietnam War protests, with abstract productions in between. This isn't a tribute to the Beatles. But then, there are already plenty of those.

The 2,031-seat theater specially designed for the show has 100-foot-wide projection screens and a loudspeaker in every seat. Films enjoy 5.1-channel surround sound; the LOVE Theater has 25.5. The effect is astounding.