Sullivan's "refined melodic inspiration and delicately-finished orchestration", and commenting on a certain monotony in the score caused by an excess of drawing room songs and waltzes. The Pall Mall Gazette considered Dance and Desprez sensible to have modelled their work on that of W.S. Gilbert, and praised Solomon's score for its tunes and for the extravagant orchestration. The Morning Post was not greatly impressed by the score, and referred the opera's "ghastly attempt at humour", but praised the staging and the cast. The Era considered that Carte and his authors and composer had done well to present the Savoy audience with a piece in the familiar Savoy genre without direct imitation of Gilbert and Sullivan. The paper praised the music and libretto, but reserved its highest praise for Carte's production, which "surpassed all previous effects at the Savoy." The review concluded, If The Nautch Girl is less striking and original than some of its predecessors at the Savoy it has merits of its own which the public are not likely to ignore." The least favourable critique was that of George Bernard Shaw, in The World: Nothing in The Nautch Girl sustains the orchestral traditions of comic opera – the delicacy and humor of Auber, the inimitable effervescence of Offenbach, or the musicianly smoothness and charm of Sullivan and Cellier. … All this may seem rather hard on poor Mr Solomon, the composer upon whom Mr Carte's choice has actually fallen. But then Mr. Solomon has been very hard on me. He has given me the worst headache I ever had in a theatre by an instrumental score which is more wearisome than the conversation of an inveterate punster, and more noisy than the melodrame which accompanies the knockabout business in a music hall. … Of the opera as an artistic whole I cannot very well speak, because it hardly is an artistic whole. The book was evidently selected for the sake of its resemblance to The Mikado, of which it might almost be called a paraphrase … the utmost that can be said for The Nautch Girl amounts to no more than can be said for any piece at the Lyric or the Prince of Wales. In other words, the Savoy has lost its speciality. This, I think, is a misfortune; and if Mr. Carte wishes to remedy it, and cannot discover two new geniuses, he had better make up