Arts & Events

Jakub Józef Orliński Is the Mick Jagger of Opera

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Friday April 19, 2024 - 02:30:00 PM



In an amazing show on Tuesday, April 9 at Zellerbach Hall, Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński sang, danced, pranced, flounced, shimmied, and sashayed all over the stage, doing cart-wheels, performing breakdances, and even taking a running leap onto a chair while singing all the while. When my 93 year-old seatmate observed that she had never seen anything like this in her entire life, I remarked that in terms of sheer energy, Jakub Józef Orliński’s performance over two hours without an intermission, could only be likened to Mick Jagger’s extremely physical antics on stage with The Rolling Stones on tour, a remark I now follow up by proclaiming Jakub Józef Orliński to be the Mick Jagger of opera. To take this comparison even further, with both Orliiński and Mick Jagger there is a certain gender ambiguity. At the Zellerbach show with the instrumental group Il Pomo d’Oro, Orliński took on both male and female roles from various Italian operas, and when he engaged in a pantomimed interaction with guitarist Miguel Rincon, Orliński flirted coyly and quite convincingly with the male guitarist.

Bay Area audiences may remember Jakub Józef Orliński’s local debut in the 2022 San Francisco Opera production of Gluck’s Orpheus ed Euridice, in which Orliński as Orpheus performed a re-markable breakdance during the opera’s overture. Among Orliński’s many talents, he is a champion breakdancer, evidence of which was amply demonstrated in his performance at Zellerbach with Il Pomo d’Oro. The show opened with an extended monologue from Orliński as Ottone from Claudio Monteverdi’s 1642 opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea. In the course of this monologue, Ottone ar-rives outside his house in Rome only to discover, much to his dismay, that during his absence his adored wife Poppea is cheating on him with the Emperor Nero. The scorned husband laments his fate and expresses his grief at this betrayal.

There followed arias from Italian opera composers Barbara Strozzi, Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Cesare Netti, and Antonio Sartorio. Most of these arias, like Ottone’s aria from L’Incoronazione di Poppea, involved the grief and chagrin of a spurned lover betrayed by the woman he loved. Then, to mix things up, Jakub Józef Orliński took on the persona of an ageing woman, stooped over and shuffling along as she sang two arias by Giovanni Cesare Netti from his 1681 opera L’Adamiro. Orliński was totally convincing in the role of this ageing woman who laments the fading of beauty but fondly recalls her younger days. The concluding aria was from Sebastiano Moratelli’s 1699 opera La Faretra smarrita. For encores, the indefatigablle Jakub Jósef Orliński and Il Pomo d’Oro performed arias by Boretti, Cavalli, Orlandoni, and a repeat of Sartorio’s aria from the main pro-gram. -more-


THE BERKELEY ACTIVIST'S CALENDAR, April 14-21

Kelly Hammargren
Tuesday April 16, 2024 - 11:06:00 AM

Worth Noting:

City Council is on recess through May 6 with the next City Council meeting scheduled for May 7, 2024

Check the City website for late announcements and meetings posted on short notice at: https://berkeleyca.gov/

It is spring. Before you go out and make all kinds of gardening mistakes watch the online Bringing Back the Native Garden Tour https://www.youtube.com/c/BringingBacktheNativesGardenTour



Save May 4 and May 5 for in person garden tours. Sign up for in-person native garden tours at https://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/view-gardens

The Demonstration on making your windows bird safe is on the Berkeley Garden Tour at Keith Johnson and Erin Diehm.

  • Tuesday, April 16, 2024:
    • From 11am – 12 pm the Recreation Department offers free Gentle African-Caribbean Movement Classes.
    • At 3:30 pm the Civic Arts Commission Public Art Subcommittee meets online.
  • Wednesday, April 17, 2024:
    • At 1:30 pm the Commission on Aging meets in person.
    • At 5 pm the Commission on Disability meets in person (commissioners can join on ZOOM, however, the ZOOM link is withheld from the public.
    • At 6 pm the Civic Arts Commission meets in person.
    • At 6:30 pm the PAB meets in the hybrid format.
    • At 7 pm the Commission on the Status of Women meets in person.
  • Thursday, April 18, 2024:
    • At 5:30 pm the Zero Waste Commission meets in person.
    • At 6 pm the South Cove Community meeting meets online at 6 pm.
    • At 6:15 pm the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission meets in-person at 6:15 pm. (track what the Transportation Commission is planning for our streets)
    • At 6:30 pm the Design Review Committee meets in person.
    • At 6:30 pm the Fair Campaign Practices / Open Government Commission meets in person in the Cypress Room at 2180 Milvia which is fully equipped for hybrid meetings however that technology is not being used.
  • Saturday, April 20, 2024: Earth Day is April 22 Activities start April 20
    • Free Home Electrification Fair at the Brower Center from 2 – 5 pm.


At the bottom are the directions for getting on or off the email list for the Activist’s Calendar and Activist’s Diary and how to make the most out of ZOOM with closed captioning, zoom transcripts, chat and converting YouTube to a transcript.



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BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS -more-