Beyoncé brought her spectacular live show to BankAtlantic Center. (Meghan McCarthy / The Post)

Witnessing A Happening: Beyonce concert photos

THE SHOW: Beyoncé at BankAtlantic Center

THE OPENING ACT: RichGirl, a quartet of attractive, tuneful but not-all-that-distinctive young women with standard R&B/pop harmonies, highly choreographed  dances and a very deliberate Beyoncé-lite vibe. Call ‘em “Destiny’s Cousin.”

THE RUNDOWN: The grand glittery spectacle that is a Beyoncé show makes an observer seriously consider both the past and the future. One imagines the big productions that Monday night’s event was clearly based on — Tina Turner/Ann-Margret-style shorter-than-short shiny leotards and hordes of back-up dancers, the Cher-esque costume changes and Barbra Streisand-like devotion to the singular diva.

Then, one thinks five, 10, 15 years into the future, when Tina and Ann and Cher (well, maybe not Cher) probably won’t be performing on that scale anymore (at least without the assistants of bionic limbs and surgery you don’t want to know about). The divas might be gone, but our public desire for sparkle and shine, shirtless dancers and mind-blowing witnessing of A Happening won’t be. And who will be left to give us that, a performer with the natural, unforced presence to thrive in all that spectacle and not be dwarfed or diminished by it?

Beyoncé, that’s who. And from the looks of things on Monday, in comparison to her work just a few years ago, she’s getting better. Shockingly better.

I felt sort of bad for opening act RichGirl, actually, because you couldn’t pay me to try to make an impression on an audience if that audience was then about to see Beyoncé live in full Glamazon mode, because there’s pretty much nobody who can seem special or fabulous in comparison. It was hard to remember specifics about them even after the between-act commercials shown on the stage’s screens, almost all of them featuring Beyoncé in historic evidence of her evolving loveliness.

By the time huge curtains parted to reveal B. taking possession of the stage to the jazzy strains of “Deja Vu” that morphed into “Crazy In Love,” the crowd was fairly freaked out. The hits came fast and furious, many cut into seamless montages (shades of Vegas!).  ”Naughty Girl,” “Freakum Dress,” “Get Me Bodied” and more were melded with the darndest things — Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” Alanis Morissette’s thumpingly bitter “You Oughta Know,” a snippet of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” and, for some reason, “Ave Maria,” set to a backdrop of rolling waves and the ever-present wind machine that blew Beyoncé’s hair and wedding dress costume that made her look like “The Birth of Venus” at the Bellagio. In between, the gracious hostess wasn’t too lofty to facilitate a marriage proposal and chat with a giddy fan named Antoine, who I suspect may have been a plant. Who cares? He channeled what everyone else was thinking.

The biggest numbers were the ones you’d expect — a surprisingly effective sing-along of “Irreplaceable” and the inevitable “Single Ladies” section, preceded by a YouTube buffet of amateur and professional interpretations of the dance that launched a million black leotards. The effect was to acknowledge Beyoncé’s sense of humor — “Look at all these people imitating me! Funny!” — and her knowledge of her singular fabulousness — “Look at all these people who wanna be me and can’t!”

Her dancing? Flawless. Her voice? Flawless. Her stage presence? No words for it. It doesn’t matter that Beyoncé’s shtick isn’t original. She’s an observant student of the glittery teachers that have come before, and she’s been able to seamlessly weave them into her own brand of rock/R&B/Vegas-palooza. Makes you giddy wondering what’s next to come.

THEIR TAKE:

Janiyah Olawale, 17, and Jhourdean Marsh, 17, Miami

Favorite part of the show: Janiyah – “That guy Antoine, that Beyoncé talked to in the audience? He was the greatest!”

Jhourdean – “The proposal thing.”

Was it as good as they imagined?

Janiyah – “Yes, and more.”

Jhourdean – “Way more!”