Morris: Edmonton Opera's HMS Pinafore falls short in lacklustre affair

It was symptomatic of the muddle that is Edmonton Opera’s new production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, that the tenor Adrian Kramer as Ralph Rackstraw, responding to “For he is an Englishman”, used a real British naval salute, while every other sailor gave the British army version.
Why they were using military salutes at all was unclear. For, following a long tradition of re-envisaging the 1878 comic opera (including one placing it on a 1944 troop ship with swin