Elektra, Salzburg Festival, Arte review - distancing, but not in the physical sense

★★★ ELEKTRA, SALZBURG FESTIVAL, ARTE Analytical Strauss with various performing styles

Cold, analytical Strauss from Franz Welser-Möst and an odd array of performing styles

So much for the assertion that nowhere in the world would be staging the big Strauss and Wagner operas for the indefinite future. With a combination of lavish funding and good pandemic management on Austria's part, it’s been possible in Salzburg.

Classical music/Opera direct to home 19 – and two before a live audience

CLASSICAL MUSIC/OPERA At home and live, though Birmingham Opera Company's treasury is tops

Finally, you can be in the room, or space, where it happens in two east London venues

It’s begun: very limited access to live music, the chance to sit before one or two players in the same room – as we were doing only three and a half months ago, in some cases thousands of us before an orchestra of up to a hundred musicians.

The Opera Story: Episodes review - whimsical takes on lockdown life

 ★★★ THE OPERA STORY: EPISODES Young London company offers snapshots of contemporary living

Young London company offers snapshots of contemporary living

The Opera Story is an enterprising set-up based in London and founded with a mission to commission and stage new operas by early career composers. They have so far produced three full-scale pieces, the earliest from 2017, performed in a reclaimed warehouse space in Peckham.

Classical music/Opera direct to home 17 - festive inventions

CLASSICAL MUSIC/OPERA DIRECT TO HOME 17 Festive inventions

Celebrating a maverick conductor, two great artists in recital and home-grown ingenuity

As the Wigmore Hall goes dark again for the summer after a stupendous series of June weekday recitals - you can still catch them all on film at the Wigmore's website, or on BBC Radio 3, and Boyd Tonkin's review of two concerts will appear here on Sunday - the shadows grow on what our goverment's going to do about the arts.

Don Giovanni/Sibelius plus, Swedish RSO, Harding, livestream review - dark studio rituals

DON GIOVANNI/ SIBELIUS PLUS, SWEDISH RSO, HARDING Vivid Mozart style from top cast and conductor, but concepts work only fitfully

Vivid Mozart style from top cast and conductor, but concepts work only fitfully

"Touch her and you die," sings Masetto in telling Don Giovanni to keep away from his Zerlina. There's certainly trouble, though not instant death, when fingers briefly meet. Mozart's dark comedy has much in Da Ponte's text about hands-on business but only a few points where it's actually seen; love and sex don't really happen, though there are two skirmishes, one fatal.

Classical music/Opera direct to home 15 - opening up at different rates

CLASSICAL MUSIC/OPERA DIRECT TO HOME 15 Opening up at different rates

The Royal Opera cautiously re-engages, while Sweden and Norway continue apace

It's taken time, but at last we have two major musical figures speaking up for cultural institutions in dire straits. Following a crucial, detailed article by Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian, Simon Rattle and Mark Elder have finally taken up the cudgels as their colleagues in the theatre world have been doing for weeks.

Classical music/Opera direct to home 14 - sound and vision at the highest level

CLASSICAL MUSIC/OPERA DIRECT TO HOME Berlin esoterica, two UK concerts and vivid Puccini

Esoteric Berlin delights, two fine UK concerts, vivid Puccini and classical awards for all

As more musicians emerge from lockdown to conduct, play and sing in audience-less venues - ongoing kudos to the Wigmore Hall for its weekday lunchtime concerts, a fixure for so many viewers and listeners - here are some more off-piste treasures, a past glory from the Royal Opera, a chance to vote for l