Imagery from Beatles' album covers and song lyrics contributes to Cirque du Soleil's new "Love," described by its director as "a long rock 'n' roll poem." The sights and sounds of "Love" include, above, the undersea "Octopus' Garden," ... ... the goo-goo gajoob Walrus (Hassan El Hajjami), ... a production number based on "Here Comes the Sun" -- which director Dominic Champagne says "brings us to the enlightenment of new spiritual horizons" ... ... and, of course, Sgt. Pepper (Rodrique Proteau). "Lucy in the Sky" becomes an aerial act in "Love."

These are the things "Love" is not:

"We're not doing a normal Cirque show. We're not doing a musical. It's not a rock 'n' roll show, it's not an opera, it's not a play. It is what it is," says Dominic Champagne, the writer and director of the new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil production at The Mirage. "It is really something else."

"Love" is, he believes, closer to "more of a visual, psychedelic rock 'n' roll poem."

Whatever it turns out to be, "Love" will be the first Cirque show in which the famed acrobatics and whimsical visuals aren't the main attraction.

"We're small, small, small compared to them," Cirque founder Guy Laliberté says of the Beatles. "They changed the world."

More than 6,000 speakers in a new circular theater attest to the musical focus of Cirque's fifth standing show on the Strip, which begins ticketed previews today in countdown to an opening-night blowout June 30. The soundtrack is the ultimate Beatles remix, a 90-minute soundscape crafted by the group's original producer, George Martin and his son Giles.

And Cirque officials repeatedly stress the project launched by the late George Harrison is the first in years to gain the approval and cooperation of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.

From a strategic point of view, such a collaboration answers the question Cirque faces every time it opens a new Las Vegas show: How can it offer something new and different that won't drain tickets from the older shows?

Yet the show had the most un-business-like of origins. Laliberté and Harrison first met in Australia in 1997 as mutual fans of Formula One racing. In June 2000, Harrison came to Cirque's home base in Montreal for a Grand Prix.

"Every year I throw what I call my big garden backyard party and invite about 1,000 people," Laliberté explains. "This party is fun and lasts all night up until the sunrise, but it's also a creative laboratory for Cirque du Soleil," giving new creators and designers a showcase.

Harrison was recovering from an attack that January by a knife-wielding intruder in his home and was battling the cancer that would claim his life in November 2001. "He told me he was very tired," and would only stay an hour or less, Laliberté remembers. "He came in at the very beginning and was one of the last ones to leave."

The late musician was energized "sitting around the campfire, talking and basically being so friendly with everybody. He wanted to see everything, he even sat and jammed with some of the artists there... He had seen Cirque du Soleil shows, but there it was about living an emotion, a spirit of something. It was very peaceful, it was very joyful."

It was decided that a few months later, it would be Laliberté's turn to visit Harrison's mansion in London. "His garden is just this ancient playground. Then I understood" that both of their backyards shared the same creative spirit.

"Planting the seeds" for their new garden was the easy part. "I would say the pain came with the lawyers and the business affair aspect of it," Laliberté said. Even beyond the surviving Beatles or their widows -- where decisions aren't made by majority, "it has to be all unanimous" -- there were musical rights negotiations and Apple Corps Ltd.'s return to a present-day show business venture.

Eventually it was decided the Beatles' camp would have final word on all musical issues and Cirque would have final approval on all theatrical aspects of the show. But the idea, the creators say, was to blur the lines.

"(Cirque) could have designed the show, and George (Martin) could have done the music and we could have packaged it together. But rather than doing this, we really tried to make a collaborative effort," says Gilles Ste-Croix, the show's director of creation.

It was decided early on that because of "Beatlemania" and other tributes, the focus would not be autobiographical, but on "the characters we have in our minds," Ste-Croix says.

"Usually a Cirque show would be based more on an acrobatic skeleton. Now we base all of that on the music," Champagne notes. "We want to share with the audience the Beatles musical experience, and also the Beatles' poetical experience in a way, or human experience."

The soundtrack -- about 25 songs left mostly intact, with snippets from about 130 others -- wasn't chosen as a greatest hits collection, but what would be the most theatrical. Some songs are no-brainers. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," as previewed for the media, offered a petite female aerialist, while "Octopus's Garden" offers an underwater world.

But Champagne says he tried to make other songs more biographical, matched "with the moment of their own journey."

"Eleanor Rigby" becomes "the world of their childhood and the bomb sites of Liverpool," while "Here Comes the Sun" "brings us to the enlightenment of new spiritual horizons." And "I Want To Hold Your Hand" addresses the Beatlemania phenomenon, with "hysterical behavior" and "boys chased by girls into a very acrobatic, intense dance moment."

The first Cirque with no live instrumentation is also the first in which the soundtrack is in the foreground, rather than providing cinematic underscoring. "It's very, very intricate," Ste-Croix says of editing the live action to the music, instead of simply asking the band, "Can you play two bars less?"

McCartney's recent visit to check out the results suggests the project has at least one founder in its corner. The Beatle told them at one point, "I sat in a van and wrote this song. Now it's become this."