There's no fuss or fanfare when Sir Paul McCartney enters the theatre at The Mirage. He travels light and slips into the auditorium quietly. His entourage consists of a single assistant. He's wearing an old pair of jeans, a plain T-shirt and off-the-shelf sneakers. It's a low-key entrance for one of the highest-profile entertainers on the planet.

There's a sudden buzz as the acrobats, dancers, creators, and technical crew spot him greeting Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin, the producers of the soundtrack of LOVE, the new show created jointly by Cirque du Soleil and the Beatles.

Ringo Starr was with Paul the first time he heard the remixed version of "Get Back" and the Martins were nervous. What if the former Beatles hated the liberties they had taken with the classic track? They needn't have worried. In fact, Ringo told them they should go further, much further. And now, with just five weeks to go before the first public performance of the show, Paul McCartney is in Vegas to see a rehearsal and listen to the almost-final mixes for the first time through the 6,341 speakers installed in the most technologically advanced theatre in the world.

The music starts. And it is nothing short of a revelation.

Individual sounds come in to each seat from all directions, with a precision and clarity that renders them so three-dimensional you could reach out and touch them. The inspired words, radiant melodies, inventive harmonies, and intricate rhythms are completely familiar - and at the same time so stunningly different, so layered in unexpected aural tapestries that it's like hearing the Beatles for the very first time.

And there's Paul McCartney, actually singing along to these astonishing reworkings of his compositions: He not only likes what he's hearing, he's grooving right along to it.

In a poignant moment, a recording session in the Abbey Road Studios is brought back to life on stage four decades after it happened. All the informal between-takes studio chatter of 40 years ago was recorded (at the Beatles' insistence). It hadn't been heard by more than a handful of people since, but now the voices of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr cross the chasm of time to fill the auditorium and recreate the precise moment a beloved song came into being.

The Beatles and Cirque du Soleil.

Together. Two iconic forces in the world of entertainment. Two partners in a Las Vegas show. The idea takes a little getting used to, but then it intrigues. Has Cirque du Soleil finally bitten off more than it can chew?