Performances scheduled to be held at the President's Palace courtyard, in Valletta yesterday and tonight were relocated indoors because of the humid weather conditions.

Maladies And Melodies, a programme of baroque music by the EU Baroque Orchestra, was moved to the Ambassador's Hall at the Auberge de Castille also in Valletta at the orchestra's request when it realised the weather was so humid.

Such weather conditions wreak havoc on instruments in general but have a stronger effect on stringed instruments as they can affect tuning. This would have been exacerbated in the case of the baroque orchestra, which uses period instruments that employ gut strings that are even more susceptible to the weather.

This shift in venue provides ammunition to those opposed to the open air performance space at the site of Valletta's opera house ruins.

Artist and avid classical music enthusiast Kenneth Zammit Tabona said the country would be wasting €20 million on a venue which in the hottest months of the year could not be used.

He recalled when violinist Yehudi Menuhin came to Malta to play on an expensive Stradivari violin and had to tune the instrument between movements because of the weather.

"We're going to have another white elephant," Mr Zammit Tabona said, adding that concerts in places such as the palace courtyard were affected by external noises, such as children enjoying themselves in the fountain at St George's Square, just opposite.

Maladies And Melodies resumes tonight at 9 at the Ambassador's Hall in the Auberge de Castille as part of the Malta Arts Festival.