"Jeffrey Ryan wrote his setting of Rimbaud's Ophélie ... as a study for a projected opera. The essentially lyric line of the singer, the very fine Myra Merritt, is set in a dissonant kaleidoscope that reflects the character's disordered mind. It is, as the composer intended, very operatic and very effective. The imaginative use of orchestra and accompanying voices is particularly striking. A good friend of mine who happened to be listening with me and who also happens to be a very fine tenor, immediately wondered what sort of music the composer would write for his voice. That says more than anything I could say about the immediacy of Ryan's music."

John Story, Fanfare (July/August 1999)

"[Ryan] surrounded the voice of Hamlet's love (Monica Whicher) with the swirling voices of her madness ... and clothed them in turn with the full Jacob's coat of the orchestra. Not only was the orchestral writing dramatically potent, the vocal writing captured the haunted quality of Rimbaud's verses ... with uncanny truthfulness."

William Littler, Toronto Star

"Ryan's Ophélie is a disturbing dramatic centerpiece to the collection."

Records International Catalogue (February 1999)

"...a mad orchestral Bergian romp..."

Mark Alburger, 21st-Century Music (June 2002)