It's a perfect weekend for al fresco entertainment in San Jose

We love our theaters and concert venues in San Jose, but a few performing arts groups are taking advantage of the beautiful weather we’ve got coming up this weekend.

Opera San Jose will bring beautiful voices to one of the most beautiful settings in San Jose, the Municipal Rose Garden, with its tribute to “The Three Tenors” on Saturday evening.

Opera San Jose General Director Shawna Lucey said the free concert, which begins at 6 p.m., will be a world-class cultural experience that’s a good complement to a certain global soccer tournament taking place up the road.

“As the FIFA World Cup brings the world to our doorstep, we’re showing that San Jose is a global destination for both world-class sport and world-class art. Or as my friend (San Jose Sports Authority Executive Director) John Poch put it: even if the Italian players aren’t here, their tenors are.”

Opera San Jose Music Director and Conductor Joseph Marcheso will have a lot more than three tenors to handle, with some sopranos and baritones in a tuneful lineup that features Madison Hatten, Nicole Koh, Laura Krumm, Alex Boyer, Edward Graves, Ben Gulley, Eugene Brancoveanu, Luis Alejandro Orozco and Philip Skinner, plus special appearances by Pasquale Esposito and Victoria Thúy Vi McDowell.

Silicon Valley Shakespeare, meanwhile, is taking the Bard back — or is it forward? — in time with its 1980s-inspired outdoor production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” at Willow Street Frank Bramhall Park. If you want to join in on the fun, or just feel like bringing out that Members Only jacket, Sunday’s production will be an ’80s Dress-Up Night for the audience. You can get the full schedule at www.svshakespeare.org.

And the Levitt Pavilion series continues with two shows this weekend at St. James Park. Latin jazzers The John Santos Sextet will perform Saturday night, with Future Dead Ringers and Bloco do Sol getting the audience warmed up starting at 4:30 p.m. Los Rakas, a Panama hip-hop and rap duo, will be Sunday’s headliners with Brazil’s Roge and Mexico’s Kaifan rounding out the international set, which starts at 1 p.m.

And, in case you’ve forgotten, it’s also Father’s Day weekend, so it might be a gift to take Dad out for a show.

STUDENTS OF HISTORY: Notre Dame High School in San Jose has kicked off a yearlong celebration of its 175th anniversary, and a group of incoming seniors are getting hands-on experience in planning a historical exhibition that marks the milestone.

During a two-week paid internship, the 14 students have been poring over documents, photographs and other memorabilia replated to the founding of the girls Catholic school by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1851 — the same year that Santa Clara University and Bellarmine College Prep were founded. Their research has taken them to the California Room at the MLK library, the Sourisseau Academy at San Jose State, Santa Clara University and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur East-West Province Center in Belmont.

"This is a unique opportunity for our students to connect with the long legacy of their school while building skills in project management, teamwork, and public history,” said social studies teacher Emily Cardenas, who is the project’s lead. “They'll also gain insight into how museums and cultural institutions curate and present the past.”

The students’ work on the project will be previewed during Notre Dame’s 175th Anniversary Gala in October and will be part of a larger exhibit planned for spring 2027.

DANCING THROUGH JUNE: CityDance San Jose has moved downtown locations this year from the Circle of Palms to Parque de los Pobladores in the SoFA district and is going to have a lot of people moving all month long.

Inspired by the music from nations participating in the World Cup, the series kicked off during WEPA! Fest last weekend, celebrating Puerto Rican/Caribbean culture and will continue Thursday (Banda, 6 p.m.), Sunday (Make Music Day, 3 p.m.) and June 24 (Cumbia, 6 p.m.) and 30 (Afrobeat, 6 p.m.).

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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 2:35 PM.