Teatro Bellini, Opera house in central Naples, Italy

Teatro Bellini is an opera house in central Naples, built around an oval auditorium encircled by six tiers of box seats. The interior decoration was designed by Giovanni Ponticelli, Pasquale Di Criscito, and Vincenzo Paliotti, giving the hall a layered and ornate appearance.

Baron Nicola Lacapra Sabelli commissioned architect Carlo Sorgente to build the theatre in 1864 on Via Vincenzo Bellini, part of the redevelopment of the Fosse del Grano area. It opened on 13 November 1864 with the Circo Guillaume and hosted mainly circus and equestrian shows until 1869. Sorgente then remodelled it after the Opéra-Comique in Paris, with a horseshoe plan and five tiers of boxes; it reopened in autumn 1878 with Bellini's I puritani.

The theatre is named after Vincenzo Bellini, the Sicilian-born composer who studied music in Naples in the 1820s; it was dedicated to him when it reopened in autumn 1878 with his opera I puritani. In 1879 the house staged the Italian premiere of Bizet's Carmen. An oil portrait of Bellini by Vincenzo Migliaro hangs between two winged figures at the centre of the proscenium arch.

The theatre stands on Via Conte di Ruvo, across from the Academy of Fine Arts, a short walk from Piazza Dante. The auditorium is arranged on several tiers of boxes around an oval floor, so seats in the upper orders are farther from the stage. The house is a private theatre with its own seasons, so check what is on before travelling.

The theatre's 1878 reopening featured Bellini's I puritani, and in 1879 it hosted the Italian premiere of Bizet's Carmen. After closing in 1963 it became a low-grade cinema, its former boxes turned into alcoves for furtive lovers, before Tato Russo's group bought it in 1986 and reopened it in 1988 with Brecht's Threepenny Opera.