"Karol Bennett…sang with a generosity and radiance that made you catch your breath…unsurpassable."

"Absolute precision of intonation, scrupulous musicianship and shining tone…Bennett's dramatic involvement, sensitivity of nuance, meaningful enunciation and radiance of feeling lifted her performance into another dimension, a spiritual one. This was memorable, cherishable singing."

"Impassioned, refined, profoundly communicative, opulently openhearted singers, with Bennett's soaring, burnished soprano the particular joy."

"Soprano Karol Bennett, as Gretel, acted with great charm and sang like one of the 14 angels."

"Karol Bennett brought a voice both ample and delicate to music composed with Jenny Lind in mnd: her “Hear ye Israel!” was clarion enough for anybody's purposes."

"Bennett was altogether extraordinary…an ability to shape a musical line through dynamics and rhythm that is at once instinctive and profound…A high, clear soprano with an interesting shining filament of structural steel in it to give strength and carrying power. Her tracing of the sublime melody of the 'Laudate Dominum' in the Vespers was in a class with the fabled recordings of Ursula van Diemen, Erna Berger and Jennifer Vyvvyan; it brought tears to my eyes. She topped this, if possible, with her singing in the Mass…Bennett's “Et incarnatus est” was both absolutely assured and suffused with wonder."

"The two big female roles had the two standout voices:…Bennett has Adele's manner just right: the maid's pretensions to becoming an actress are undercut by a smirking sense of mischief. The combination is funny enough that it's almost funnier still when Adele opens her mouth to deliver, most improbably, some wonderfully graceful singing."

Choral Performance of the Year: "Karol Bennett was an unexpected, but utterly inspired, choice for the soprano part. She may not have a conventional 'Verdi voice,' but she surely does have a Verdi soul. There is a focus and ringing bell in her light, clear soprano that makes it carry over the heaviest climaxes; she always sings absolutely in tune, her voice hovering like an angel's wing over the mezzo's human line in the 'Agnus Dei.' Her flawless pianissimo high B-flat in the 'Libera me' was no mere technical feat but an act of prayer. Her entry into the 'Offertorio' came like a promise from another world, but she presented most of her music from this one, in the voice that conveyed a child's immediacy of emotion, vulnerability, and total, invicible, heartbreaking trust in her Father God."

Recital of the Year: "Bennett and McDonald have become one of today's finest Lieder partnerships. She brings to Das Marienleben a soprano at one crystal clear and full of mysteries, magnificently secure and imaginative musicianship, rare purity and precision of intonation and remarkably complete identification with the inner life of each song."

“Through her sensational performance, Bennett showed that, for all Babbitt's avant-gardism, Philomel is an intensely interesting drama.”

“Bennett powerfully conveyed the slightly mad naivete and shell-shocked horror.”

“She is one of our most valuable singing actresses, but the emphasis was on 'actress,' as she impersonated no less than 10 characters—all speaking parts…It was a pity not to hear her sing, but her tour-de-force of voices made it clear why her singing performances are so eloquent.”

Critics Choice: “Karol Bennett…sings with sumptuous sound, wrenching poignancy and faultless musicianship.”

“Bennett's ethereally beautiful singing makes each song a dream-like experience”

“Soprano Karol Bennett was in almost sinfully beautiful voice”

“Bennett's singing remains dew-fresh, with perpetually astonishing accuracy of intonation, and active involvement with the sound of words and the resonances of their meaning.”

“Soprano Karol Bennett and percussionist Andrea Moore were the fine soloists, technically assured and strongly communicative.”

“One particularly admired the disembodied brightness of Karol Bennett's soprano voice”

“The dazzling virtuoso of the night was soprano Karol Bennett, who not only needed a dazzling high range to sing, in Finnish, but also had to play percussion—tambourin, wind chimes, sandpaper and the like.”

“As fine a performance as this listener has heard…Karol Bennett, in white-gauze clown costume, offered superb German diction and a surreal, cabaret-influenced lilt that brought across the piece's ghastliness as well as its biting wit.”