While I'm no judge of Fidelio recordings, I found that the quality of this recording distracted from whatever enjoyment I would have found from listening. Recorded live, this recording has a hollow, distant sound the almost hides the orchestra and dulls the soloists.The only real value of this disk is due to its being (I think) the only Fidelio highlights disk available on Amazon (I have seen others in stores, including one from Karajan). Unless you must buy a Fidelio highlights disk here, I would not recommend buying this one.