Festa Italiana

Begun in 1978, Festa Italiana is Milwaukee's longest-running lakefront ethnic festival. The four-day event is an outgrowth of the old Italian street festivals that used to set up in the Third Ward. Processions wound down neighborhood streets and the alluring scent of delicious food wafted up from the Ward.

When "urban renewal" dispersed the Third Ward Italians, the street festivals faded away. But the then-nascent Italian Community Center nucleus launched Festa Italiana, sparking a slew of others and leading to the ethnic jackpot that we find at the Henry Maier Festival Park today.

Festa has grown and grown over the years and these days it utilizes almost the entire Summerfest grounds. The musical entertainment is still heavy on the "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie" variety, but that's been changing, too, lately.

This year The Monkees and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons headline on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

This year's featured region is the Veneto, and chefs Nick Stellino and The Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro, will appear.

One of Festa's most popular traditions is the Sunday morning Mass, which begins at 11, followed by a traditional procession of Italian religious, social and mutual aid societies. Many of the individuals who attend mass also march in the procession through the Maier Festival Park. Attendance at Mass gets you in free to Festa, too.

Reached via e-mail, Sonia Cestonaro, who hails from the tiny, but soaring Alpine Valle d'Aosta region of Italy and who performed at her first Festa in 2006 with the group Ariondassa, expressed her admiration.

"It is a fantastic event," she says, "here in Italy nothing similar exists. We were struck by the big stages, and the numerous exhibits that were all so well organized: the cucina, the opera tent, the concerts, the (traditional) dancers, the flag throwers, the fireworks every night.

"It’s rare for people in Italy to see such a festival of grand proportions. For an Italian to come to America for the first time, it was a beautiful surprise. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. The quality of the festival is very high and we would like to have an event like this in Europe, too."

 Festa is open 2 p.m.-midnight Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-midnight Friday-Sunday. Admission is $10 in advance, $13 at the gate.