Teatro Bellini, Opera house in central Palermo, Italy

Teatro Bellini is an opera house in central Palermo that displays traditional Italian theater architecture. The building features multiple tiers of boxes and a specially designed ceiling created to improve acoustic sound for performances.

The theatre traces its origins to 1676, when the popular Teatro Travaglino, named after a Palermitan mask, was founded. A new wooden Teatro Santa Lucia, named for the Marchesi Valguarnera di Santa Lucia, opened in 1726 with 500 seats. Renamed Real Teatro Carolino in honour of Queen Maria Carolina after the 1799 revolution, it was restored by Nicolò Puglia in 1808 and given a new façade by Rosario Torregrossa Palazzotto in 1840. It was provisionally dedicated to Vincenzo Bellini in 1848 and definitively in 1860.

The name honors composer Vincenzo Bellini, one of Sicily's greatest artists. The theater remains tied to the region's musical heritage and serves as a place where visitors can experience this artistic legacy.

The theatre stands in Palermo's historic centre, a short walk from the city's main monuments; the surrounding streets are narrow and largely pedestrian, so arriving on foot is simplest. The auditorium keeps the multi-tier layout of an Italian-style house, with the entrance at street level and the seating rising through several orders of boxes.

In 1943, during Operation Husky, the US Army requisitioned the theatre and used it as a cinema for soldiers. It had already served as a cinema from the 1930s until the early 1960s, and a 1964 fire later closed it until it reopened in 1980.