“The Pied Piper of the ongoing revival of Baroque operas, William Christie is not a man to be disobeyed. If we are now familiar with countless rarities by Handel, as well as long-forgotten gems by Monteverdi, Purcell and the French masters Lully, Charpentier and Rameau, it’s largely because of Mr. Christie’s passion for music written between, roughly, 1600 and 1750, and his ability to sniff out buried musical gold as unerringly as a pig finds truffles.”