Garda Festival Launches Lake Benàco Tour with Music and Guests
The Garda Festival is happening. This evening at 9:30 PM, on the Brescia territory, the tour along the shores of Lake Benàco begins with the Cantalago, a popular summer song event in the Garda area. The debut, actually a gala evening, takes place at the prestigious Vittoriale theater and opens the series of the next nineteen stops that will involve as many lakefront towns and nearby inland areas.
The event is organized by the Benacus association with the patronage of the regions of Veneto and Lombardy, the Autonomous Province of Trento, the Garda Community, the tourism departments of the Provinces of Verona and Brescia, and the support of the Riviera degli Olivi Tourist Promotion Agency.
Hosting the gala will be Federica Moro, who has previously starred in films with Adriano Celentano and popular mini-series. Special guests include Gloria Zanin and Susanna Huckstep, two former Miss Italy winners who will alternate as hosts during the upcoming festival stops scheduled in the most beautiful and suggestive squares of the Benacense territory.
Music and Guests of the Cantalago
This evening, the musical opening of the show will be by Andrea Vantini, artistic director of the event, performing the new song Storia dedicated to the Vittoriale degli italiani. The complex was commissioned by poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938) with two purposes: to serve as his residence (he lived there from 1921 until his death) and at the same time as a monument to his genius and the achievements accomplished during World War I.
The Vittoriale sits on nine hectares of land and includes buildings, monumental complexes, the mausoleum with the poet’s tomb, gardens, and the open-air theater where the Cantalago will take place, featuring musical guests such as the Vicentino Paolo Fin, the Tuscan Ale Scatizzi, both associated with Warner Music, as well as productions from the Festival del Garda—Elisa Antonelli from Illasi, Ivan Preda from Verona, and Diletta Orlandi from Desenzano.
But it’s not just songs that will be featured during the gala, which also includes the performance of the Zelig comedian Giorgio Zanetti of Milan and the Gamblers dance troupe directed by choreographer Nando De Bortoli. There will also be space for rap with the Matross and the winner of the 2000 Cantalago edition, young Brescia native Elena Tavernini.
Among the guests is Cristian Pighi, a hairstylist from Lazise, who won the Festival del Garda in 1999 in Desenzano during the final hosted by Simona Ventura and Franco Oppini, with Maestro Mogol leading the jury in the audience.
Pighi is now under contract with the German record producer Robert Jung, composer of over three thousand songs, including “La pastorella,” performed by two hundred fifty different artists and which has sold around 25 million copies worldwide.
Next Friday, the Cantalago will debut in Volta Mantovana, then make its first stop in the Verona area, in Bussolengo square. On Saturday, July 7, the remaining Verona towns to be involved in the event will be Peschiera, Torri, Malcesine, Cavaion, Garda, Lazise, and Bardolino.
