That is the meaning of the title, and Marsalis enlarges on this theme through songs with bitter lyrics sung by a marvellous new singer, Jennifer Sanon, and even a burst of rap he himself delivers.
Of course, there are plenty of bewitching spells of rhythm and color: the marvellous Schola Cantorum singers are given swinging, syncopated choruses; the orchestra constantly shimmers and glows, with harp, celesta, exotic percussion, and two recorders adding hyperimpressionistic refinement; several surges of clean-lined melody are worthy of Leonard Bernstein.
He added: "He was scholar, a singer, an extraordinary raconteur and of course, a marvellous actor … There will never be another Christopher Lee.
He had a beautifully clear diction and a marvellous sense of timing – and was one of the finest singers of the then popular topical songs that our stage ever knew".
The marvellous opener 'Underneath the Stars' is as romantic as its title intimates, the singer sounding somehow both worldly and wide-eyed, a fortysomething cynic reborn as a perky child.
As a lieder singer he built a close relationship with the accompanist Gerald Moore - "a marvellous pianist and the most unpretentious person I have ever met" - that lasted for 25 years and produced recordings that still dominate the repertoire.
It has been a marvellous inspiration to discover three 18th-century tenors to match those of more recent times, singers even more different in vocal possibilities and temperaments perhaps than the 20th-century greats, Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras.
The theatre is small, and the concert halls are marvellous, and it is great to be able to choose what I'm going to conduct, and the singers I work with.
Marvellous, marvellous, absolutely splendid.
