(5 out of 5 stars) "Musically, you could not ask for a better PINAFORE.The cast is superb! Donald Adams is a topnotch, menacing Dick Deadeye. Felicity Palmer has a full, round, dark sound and tackles Little Buttercup with what seems to be ease, and sings every note, showing off the expansive range required for the role. Richard Van Allan (whose voice I usually find to be quite heavy) as the Boatswain's mate, sings fully, and does a great rendition of "For He is an Englishman." Richard Stuart as the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., the "ruler of the Queen's Navee," is deadpan and understated in his comic delivery. Thomas Allen delivers Captain Corcoran's entrance number ("I am the Captain of the Pinafore") in good voice, and with sly timing. He performs equally well for the rest of the album, also being of very good voice in his "Fair Moon" song. Michael Schade has a very dark, beautiful sound for a tenor, and is quite delightful on "A Maiden Fair to See," and sings his "Nightingale" madrigal quite handsomely. And John King and Phillip Lloyd Evans (both as the Carpenter's mate) and Valerie Seymour (as Cousin Hebe) are all as vocally strong as the remainder of the cast, and deliver stellar performances.But the true star of this album (at least for me) is Rebecca Evans as Josephine. She sings "Sorry Her Lot" quietly, plaintively, and has excellent control at the end with the notes building to the beautiful close. She is also very dramatic with her sound, as is quite apparent on my FAVORITE track on this album: her dramatic, operatic scena "The Hours Creep on Apace." She approaches each note with such force, an example is her singing on the phrase "my GUIL-ty heart is quaking." Most sopranos who essay this role (even the D'Oyly Carte Grande Dame Valerie Masterson), back off and/or falter out on "guilty," but Evans plows right into it, and sings it beautifully with full force. She builds and builds to a dramatic climax in this song, and it pays off. Her rendition is nothing less than awesome. Evans singing with Schade in the "I/He humble, poor, and lowly born" section of the Act Two Finaletto, builds and builds up to "he is an Englishman--behold me/him!", where it finally releases, and allows Van Allan to let loose the "He is an Englishman" theme. It is one of the album's most breath-taking moments.Mackerras leads the orchestra through all of the songs quite well, with everything at a nice, brisk tempo when it needs to be, but never too fast. And the Overture seems to be more perfect here than anywhere else on disc (the drum-roll and the percussion beat alone at the top of it are enough of an example of that). The exciting highlights of the disc for me are the Act One finale (track 17) and just about everything in Act Two, but especially the Finaletto of "Carefully on tip-toe stealing/He is an Englishman" and Josephine's scena. In fact, Act Two is a non-stop run of musical "hits" in a row: "Things are seldom what they seem," "The hours creep on apace," "Never mind the why and wherefore" (in a high energy reading here that leaves me breathless every time); ""Kind Captain, I've important information" (sung menacingly and with gusto by Adams and Allen); and then through to the finale. And the musical counterpoints and harmony on "O joy, o rapture unforseen!" can be clearly heard on this album, and it is indeed a joy!This album is *NOT* to be avoided--BUY! BUY! BUY!"