TINY DANCER: American Repertory Ballet dancer Nanako Yamamoto shows an aspiring ballerina how it’s done at the Princeton Festival’s Community Day, part of the annual series opening weekend. (Photo courtesy of American Repertory Ballet)
Opening weekend of the 2026 Princeton Festival at Morven Museum & Garden will include music from Broadway, opera, ballet, and family-friendly activities.
Sierra Boggess, Broadway’s original “Little Mermaid,” returns to the festival on Friday, June 5 with her program of favorite Broadway songs mixed with personal anecdotes.
The following evening on June 6, soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Sondra Radvanovsky performs arias of Verdi and Puccini. Tenor and Festival veteran Victor Starsky joins her for duets from famous operas including Puccini’s Tosca and Manon Lescaut as well as Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. He’ll also perform the famous tenor aria “Nessun Doroma” from Puccini’s Turandot. Accompanying the soloists are the Princeton Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Rossen Milanov.
Sunday, June 7 is designated as the Festival’s Community Day, starting with free morning Yoga in the Garden for skill levels ages 10-adult. From 12-3 p.m., family friendly activities include the PSO BRAVO! Instrument Petting Zoo; a Musical Story Time featuring a Princeton Symphony Orchestra musician and a nature story read by a Morven Museum & Garden Horticulturalist; a Quilting Exhibition; Harriet Powers: American Icon, with the Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild; and American Repertory Ballet’s 30-minute Swan Lake experience: an accelerated story of the ballet with audience participation.
The ballet company teams up with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra at 7 p.m. for An Evening of Dance. The program includes pas de deux from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake as well as Concerto Francaix, choreographed by Charles Askegard to Jean Francaix’s Piano Concerto, with Steven Beck as pianist. There is also the world premiere of a new work choreographed by Michelle Quiner to Caroline Shaw’s “The Beech Tree” from Plan and Elevation.
The festival continues through June 21. For details and tickets, visit princetonsymphony.org.