‘Searle’s musical setting employs his by now familiar post-Schoenberg romantic idiom: it seems intrinsically apt for a play, which appeals to the romantic as well as the post-Freudian in modern times. In pace and timbre and response to situation, Searle is dynamic, flamboyant, fanciful, though careful about word audibility.’
The Times (William Mann) ‘Searle’s opera is an important and highly successful interpretation of Shakespeare in modern musical language, meeting the demands of the stage for clarity and intelligibility. The instrumentation is very subtle, providing the listener with dark colours as well as sounds of glass-like transparency. The vocal writing is predominantly of an arioso style, passionate in expression, and broadening into near folk-song for Ophelia’s mad scene.’
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