“SIERRA BOGGESS: A CABARET EVENING”: Princeton Festival has presented “Sierra Boggess: A Cabaret Evening.” Broadway and West End star Sierra Boggess (above), accompanied by pianist and composer Zina Goldrich, opened the 2026 Princeton Festival with a program of highlights from musical theater. (Photo by Princeton Symphony Orchestra staff)
By Donald H. Sanborn III
Princeton Festival opened its 2026 season with “Sierra Boggess: A Cabaret Evening” on June 5. Broadway and West End star Boggess beautifully sang an exquisite and versatile program of classic and contemporary highlights from musical theater. Composer and pianist Zina Goldrich accompanied Boggess in a selection of songs that was by turns exuberant and poignant.
For the fifth consecutive year, the concert was presented (as will be other Princeton Festival events this season) in a performance tent outside Morven Museum & Garden. Boggess previously performed at the same venue (along with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra) at the 2022 Princeton Festival. She also performed with PSO in 2018; that same year she starred in The Age of Innocence at McCarter Theatre.
She made her Broadway debut in the 2007 stage version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, Broadway.com Audience Choice Award). She has portrayed Christine Daaé in multiple productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera (including the 25th anniversary concert at Royal Albert Hall), as well as the West End premiere of its sequel, Love Never Dies. For the Chandos label, she (along with other performers) has been collaborating with conductor John Wilson on studio recordings of classic musicals.
Goldrich is an award-winning composer, conductor, musical director, and performing artist who has played keyboards and/or conducted for multiple Broadway musicals. With her longtime collaborator Marcy Heisler, she won the 2009 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in songwriting. Their musical adaptation of Ever After, a film that retells the Cinderella story without the supernatural elements, enjoyed a sold-out run at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.
Boggess entered, sporting a vibrant magenta dress. Despite her association with Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, she opened this concert (as she did her 2022 Princeton Festival appearance) with “Home,” from a different stage adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel. Phantom (1991) has a book by Arthur Kopit; the music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston.
“Home” is a number that opens delicately and ends operatically — a progression often favored by Boggess — waiting until the end to let the singer reveal her high soprano. Her considerable vocal range, pleasing vibrato, and skill in phrasing were immediately apparent. Yeston’s line “I’m home, where music fills the air” certainly is an apt opening to the Princeton Festival.
After extolling the opportunity to sing in Princeton and get out of New York City for a short time, Boggess sang all three parts of a sprightly, wry Andrews Sisters pastiche, “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” a trio written by Stephen Sondheim for Company (1970). Boggess infused the song with sass. For most of the rendition she was faithful to the original melody, but ended on a (literal) high note.
This was followed by a trilingual rendition of “Think of Me” (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe). In The Phantom of the Opera (1986) the song launches the career of ingénue Christine Daaé. Boggess sang it in English (playfully imitating a Las Vegas musical style), French (in acknowledgement of the setting), and Japanese (a tribute to the show’s international success).
The next two selections were from Goldrich and Heisler’s Ever After (2015). The well-constructed, gently ironic “Who Needs Love?” is brisk, seamlessly transitioning to a more lyrical, expressive middle section. The delicate, lushly melodic ballad “I Remember” is contrastingly more sentimental.
For Carousel (1945) composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the blithe “Mr. Snow” for Carrie, a friend of the female protagonist, to sing about her fiancé, a respectable (if snobbish) fisherman. Boggess sang the line “Mr. Snow, here I am” more earthily and seductively than the rest of it, which was more coy and giddy.
In 2023 Boggess starred in the short-lived run of Harmony on Broadway. The musical tells the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble whose inclusion of Jewish singers landed them in trouble with the Nazis. The tender “Every Single Day” (music by Barry Manilow, lyrics by Bruce Sussman) is sung to Boggess’ character in the show, but she performed it at this concert. Although written for a male voice, the melody pleasingly fits Boggess’ soprano.
Monte Cristo is a new adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel. The York Theatre presented it this past spring, with Boggess playing Mercedes, the love interest of Edmund, a wrongfully imprisoned sailor. “How Did I Get So Far?” (music by Peter Kellogg, lyrics by Stephen Weiner) is sung by Mercedes when she believes Edmund to be dead. The piece begins plaintively and becomes increasingly impassioned.
“If’n I was God” was written by Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman (best known for their work on Mary Poppins and other Disney projects) for the title character to sing in the musical film Tom Sawyer (1973). Boggess successfully captures Tom’s childlike innocence and idealism.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of My Fair Lady (1956). Boggess ended the first half of the concert by leading the audience in a sing-along of “I Could Have Danced All Night” (lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe), the jubilant signature number for the character of Eliza Doolittle. Boggess added a bit of choreography by exuberantly twirling around onstage.
After the intermission, Boggess re-entered — now wearing a blue gown whose patterns somewhat resemble gentle ocean water — and began the next set with “Part of Your World.” Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken wrote the ballad for Ariel (the title character) to sing in The Little Mermaid. Capturing the song’s alternating moods of fascination and frustration, Boggess moved back and forth across the stage, echoing the character’s need to escape her physical confines, and made a swimming it shmotion near the song’s conclusion.
In 2015 Boggess starred in the Broadway production of It Shoulda Been You, a musical in which the main characters are marrying the wrong person. Boggess’ character, Rebecca, sings “A Little Bit Less Than” (music by Barabra Anselmi, lyrics by Brian Hargrove) to reveal that she is gay. Here, Boggess dedicated the song to Pride Month. (During the performance of the number, she had to leave the stage to get a bug out of her mouth and drink some water, necessitating a pleasant interlude by Goldrich. Insect duly removed, Boggess returned for a strong finish.)
The exultant “What a Guy” (music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by David Zippel) is sung late in The Goodbye Girl (an adaptation of the Neil Simon film). The character of Paula delivers it when she realizes that, having gone through a string of unsuccessful relationships, she finally has found the right match. Boggess sang the number in a sweet tribute to her own husband, filmmaker and actor Stefano Da Frè.
As she did in at least one of her 54 Below appearances, Boggess read a series of love letters her grandparents wrote to each other during World War II. In one of these, her grandmother wrote, “Each morning, think of me and I’ll be thinking of you at the same time. Is it a date?” The passage inescapably recalls the selection from The Phantom of the Opera performed by Boggess earlier in the concert.
This spoken-word segment was sandwiched by two expressive medleys. The first paired “Loving You” (Sondheim) from Passion (1994) and “The Nearness of You” (a 1937 ballad written by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington). The second combined “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Otto Harbach, for Roberta (1933) and “You’ll Never Know,” a 1943 song by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Mack Gordon.
As with Boggess’ 2022 Princeton Festival appearance, the last few selections comprised a somewhat poignant turn, presenting songs in which characters confront the loss of a loved one, as well as the need to overcome their grief and start a new life.
The Secret Garden (1991) has a book and lyrics by Marsha Norman, and music by Lucy Simon. From that show Boggess sang — in a moving tribute to Simon, who died in 2022 — the poignant ballad “How Could I Ever Know?” which the ghost of Lily’ Craven comfortingly sings to her widowed husband. Boggess played a demo recording of Simon singing “How Could I Ever Know,” and sang live along with it, eventually finishing the song herself.
The comparatively somber note continued with Boggess singing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera. Some critics have chided Lloyd Webber for repeating melodies too often in his shows. But as Christine sings about the need to cease mourning her dead father, the melody subtly evokes an earlier number, “Angel of Music,” deftly beginning an evolution in Christine’s attitude toward the Phantom.
The final scene of Into the Woods (1987) also deals with overcoming grief, as a father (the Baker) must raise his son without his dead wife. Boggess closed with Sondheim’s cautionary lullaby from that show, “No One is Alone.”
At one point in the evening, Boggess recalled collaborating with Lloyd Webber to perform for Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee. Fortunately, as audiences discovered at Princeton Festival’s opening concert, one did not necessarily have to attend the late Queen’s celebration to enjoy a Sierra Boggess performance that was fit for royalty.
For information about upcoming presentations by Princeton Festival, visit princetonsymphony.org/festival.