"Much of the text is delivered as melodrama over suitably doomy, atmospheric textures from the 12-piece ensemble ... In the sections that Hosokawa does assign to the singing voice, it's still hard to escape the incessant rhyming couplets of the original, even at the climax, when the music finally achieves a kind of operatic intensity. Hellekant delivers it all superbly, though; without a performer of her dramatic presence, it wouldn't be half as convincing as it is".