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...February has barely begun, and Beyoncé is already having the biggest year of her life. Just a couple of weeks after her historic, indelible star turn at the presidential Inauguration, she has found herself, yet again, at the center of another worldwide television event with an unfathomably huge audience: the Oscars. Although she is in the midst of a grueling schedule of her own-preparing for a world tour that kicks off this month-she has somehow found time to rehearse for what might be the most challenging performance of her career: a high-wire act that essentially packs the history of the movie musical into five minutes of showstopping song and dance. Opposite Hugh Jackman (gulp). Live.

The weekend before the telecast, Hollywood's ultimate showman, Baz Luhrmann, who is directing this big, pizzazzy number, calls me in between rehearsals. "At some point," he says, "as Hugh was inventing his own little musical out of many famous musicals, he realized he needed a leading lady. The question became: Who could that be? Who can sing and dance and act? It's a fairly rare combination." Enter Beyoncé.

"There are many people who have powerful voices," says Luhrmann, "and then there are rare stars-whether it's a Streisand or a Louis Armstrong or a Maria Callas-whose voice is recognizable no matter what the material. That's what makes a great musical star: They put their imprint on anything they're given. Beyoncé absolutely has that." He pauses for a moment, and then for good measure adds one last piece of high-flying praise: "And as a dancer, there's not a step you can give her that she can't pick up."

If her director is suitably impressed, her costar is positively giddy. "Just watching how she processes everything, she's so fast," says Jackman. "She'd never heard the song 'Top Hat,' and she just listened to it once, and she was sort of humming along with it, and then she heard it another time, and then she just sang it like it had never been sung before, in a way that was so sultry and soulful and sexy and engaging. You thought to yourself, This is the best version of this song I've ever heard. I just found myself going, 'Oh, my God, I want to do movies with this girl. I want do a movie musical!' "

When Beyoncé finally appeared out of the darkness at the top of the stairs on Oscar night-every inch the showgirl in red sequins and top hat-she looked fabulous and sounded even better. The whole number was classic Baz Luhrmann: pastiche stirred into happy chaos. But it did make me long to hear Beyoncé sing whole versions of some of those songs, from "Over the Rainbow" to "You're the One That I Want."

Could there be a full-length Luhrmann-directed Knowles-Jackman movie musical in the future? "One can only pray," says Luhrmann. "My mind is racing already."..."\