Naxos has an uncanny knack for choosing the right artists for its operatic ventures. On this occasion, four of the singers are among the better known in the field, each judiciously cast.
Halász projects every facet of the score, inspiring his forces to live every moment of the plot in words and music. This isn't an interpretation in the romantic, quasi-philosophical mode of Furwängler or Klemperer, rather one that alerts the mind and ear to the human agony of it all.
Nielsen's Leonore is no projection of subservient femininity but a tormented wife seeking to save her husband, her plight expressed in every key phrase. She doesn't provide the heroic sounds of a Nilsson (Maazel) or all the warmth of Rysanek (Fricsay), but her slimmer, more compact tone exactly fits this performance. Winberg is a Florestan equal to his Leonore in vocal and interpretative assets. Not even Heppner (Davis) or Seiffert (Harnoncourt), among modern interpreters, sings the role better. His voice poised between the lyrical and the heroic, his tone warm, his technique firm, Florestan's scene can seldom have been so satisfyingly sung and enacted. As Marzelline, Edith Lienbacher is something of a discovery, catching the eagerness, also the sense of nerves a-jangle predicated by the part.
The dialogue, rather drastically foreshortened, is well spoken by all and intelligently directed.
The orchestral and choral singing need fear no comparisons, and the recording has plenty of presence, no tricks. This is a performance that fulfils almost all the demands made on its principals and at the price should be eagerly sought after: its most notable predecessors are matched, if not surpassed.

a first-rate modern cast incisively directed by Michael Halasz, and very well recorded. Inga Nielsen is an outstanding Leonore, with every note sharply focused...Few singers on disc in recent years begin to rival her account of Abscheulicher...this version is among the very finest to have arrived in recent years