Alessandro Stradella: Santa Pelagia – Ensemble Mare Nostrum

   in Early Music Today (Dec, 2017)
The flamboyant lifestyle of Alessandro Stradella has tended to obscure his large output, so the foundation of a Stradella festival in Italy and its attendant recording project brings the prospect that we may come to know more of his music. The present recording stems from the 2016 festival and features one of his earlier oratorios (before 1677). Santa Pelagia is based on the story of a dancer and prostitute in Antioch who turned away from her glamorous lifestyle to convert to Christianity. In keeping with most moralistic 17th-century oratorios, the battle for Pelagia’s soul is fought between two allegorical characters, Mondo (World) and Religione, the latter aided by the only …