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Festival of Beauty 2025 at the Garden of Pojega: Guia Soncini and Antonio Caprarica on stage in the Teatro di Verzura
The Festival of Beauty and the 2025 theme “Wonder”
Born in Verona, the Festival of Beauty is establishing itself as one of the most important cultural events of the Italian summer. In recent years it has gone beyond the city’s borders to reach some of the country’s most prestigious and evocative locations, from the Castello Sforzesco in Milan to Villa La Rotonda in Venice, and even the famous ancient Theatre of Taormina. The 2025 edition, entitled “Wonder”, brought to Verona and its surroundings leading voices of contemporary culture, including Guia Soncini and Antonio Caprarica, who were hosted on September 2 in the charming Teatro di Verzura of the Garden of Pojega, in Negrar di Valpolicella.
Guia Soncini at the Garden of Pojega: sarcasm and insight on the present
At 6:30 PM, writer and journalist Guia Soncini presented the talk “Stupid and Amazed”, in dialogue with Marco Ongaro, singer-songwriter, writer and long-time figure of the Festival of Beauty. With her ironic and sharp style, Soncini led the audience through a reflection on contemporary society, analyzing digital stardom, media ostentation and the nonsense that marks our age. Her critical reading, both sarcastic and profound, offered a sharp and intelligent mirror of the contradictions of our present.
Antonio Caprarica and “Questions of Style”: a journey through elegance and social icons
At 8:30 PM it was the turn of Antonio Caprarica, journalist, writer and a well-known face of Italian television. His talk, titled “Questione di stile” (Matter of Style), took the audience on a journey from the nineteenth-century figure of Beau Brummell up to today, with references to contemporary icons such as Kate Middleton. Caprarica showed how style, far beyond clothing, has always been a cultural language, a synthesis of elegance, desire and transgression, demonstrating how form can often coincide with substance.
The meeting with the audience for the fansign and the gift of Ripasso Pojega
At the end of the events, both speakers stayed with the audience to sign their books, creating a moment of direct and friendly exchange. To conclude the evening, Agostino Rizzardi presented the guests with a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso Pojega, a wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the Garden and bearing its very name.
The atmosphere of the Teatro di Verzura, framed by centuries-old greenery and eighteenth-century harmony, made the Negrar stage of the Festival of Beauty 2025 an unforgettable event, perfectly in tune with this year’s theme: the search for and celebration of wonder.
