If anyone wanted a more entertaining introduction to baroque music, played on period instruments in a period theatre, King’s Consort at the Manoel were hard to beat. Featured as part of the Valletta International Baroque Festival, the English ensemble played selections from Handel with a unique focus on the composer’s most celebrated heroines.

From much maligned Athalia to stern Deborah, through Amadigi’s wicked Melissa and tragic Cleopatra, soprano Lorna Anderson was entertaining and inventive. An aria from Ottone (Affanni del Pensier) proved especially clever, conjuring the majesty of Handel’s style outside of its theatrical context.

Conductor Robert King led the audience through each piece, setting the scene and generally endeared himself with self-effacing conviviality – something that’s far too rare on Malta’s musical scene, where things can get a little dour and stuffy.

King founded the ensemble while studying at Cambridge in the 1980s, and the ensemble have gone on to perform across Europe, the US and Asia. They’ve produced some 100 recordings, selling in excess of a million CDs while garnering critical and public acclaim.

During the performance we enjoyed a short lesson in baroque trumpet playing from Crispian Steele-Perkins, one of the world’s finest virtuoso trumpeters. Affable and accomplished, the lesson fit right into the concert’s light-hearted mood.

It was a satisfying evening of full-on fun, presenting bits of popular baroque music in an accessible style that was sure to have won new fans. Here’s hoping we’ll see King’s Consort at next year’s festival.

Les Talens Lyriques’ Terpsichore was a very different experience. The performance featured two versions of the same mythological narrative, where the Muse of dance Terpsichore dazzles Apollo, god of the Arts. The first was Rebel’s (including various other pieces by the composer), followed by Handel’s ‘opera-ballet’ (the more successful of the two).

Les Talens Lyriques are a vocal and instrumental ensemble founded and directed by Christophe Rousset. It would have been a pleasure to see the musicians and singers front and centre on stage because they were the evening’s special highlight.

They played with tender refinement and captivated an audience eager for some excellent baroque music. Of the singers, baritone Jussi Lehtipuu and mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland gave sensitive interpretations, lifting the entire performance.

Dance was contributed by Fetes Galantes, under the direction of Beatrice Massin. In general, the dancing was a little perplexing, an uneasy fit with the vivacity of the instrumentation. In trying to incorporate contemporary styles with the baroque idiom the choreography never really settled for either, and its results were ambiguous.

None of that really got in the way of the performance’s enduring appeal – a perfectly presented composition in the French style, where voice follows sweet voice, and all are held up on the swell of violins, flutes and horns. It was certainly an unexpected but welcome addition to the festival line-up.

In terms of pay-off, the Valletta International Baroque Festival delivered. Every evening was its own little universe, an exploration of some facet of Europe’s baroque heritage that Malta is perfectly placed, both historically and architecturally, to appreciate and amplify.

Thanks to the work of Kenneth Zammit Tabona (the festival’s artistic director) and his team, the ambitious sequence of concerts came together to offer locals and visitors alike a real glimpse into Malta’s budding potential as a venue for cultural excellence on the world stage.

This is the beginning of an exciting new adventure for the city of Valletta, shared by Maltese musicians and their future partnerships with leading orchestras and groups across Europe.

January 2014 can’t come soon enough.