Teatro Bellini Napoli

The Bellini Theater was inaugurated on 6 February 1878 and for about 15 years its programming was mainly opera, then it opened up to dialectal prose and for a few years it became the permanent home of Eduardo Scarpetta's company. Subsequently, at the beginning of the 1900s, Bellini became a temple of operetta, first, and of revue and song, then, occasionally welcoming prose representations. From its construction until the first post-war period it was the heart of the cultural life of good Neapolitan society. After the Second World War, a slow decline began, determined by the change in social habits and in 1962, the Bellini theater hosted its last show: Masaniello with Nino Taranto and then became a third-rate cinema and closed at the end of the 70s. After years of decline and then closure, Tato Russo, in 1987 decided to save the Bellini from certain destruction. The artist, after having founded the company Gli Ipocriti and the Nuova Commedia company and having collaborated in the creation of theatrical circuits of numerous festivals, as well as in the reopening of the Teatro delle Arti and the Diana Theater, in 1987 decided to take over the structure and, in just over a year, overcoming technical, organizational and economic difficulties, he managed to bring the building back to its former glory. In the autumn of 1988, with the staging of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera directed by Tato Russo himself, the Bellini once again became a theatre. Tato Russo was artistic director of the Bellini Theater for 21 years and brought it back to the rank of cultural institution by producing large productions and hosting avant-garde shows. Under his direction, the Bellini Theater has seen the most important Italian artists on stage and beyond: they were for the first time in Naples and in many cases in Italy from Momix to Lindsay Kemp, from Freaks to Zingarò, from Woody Allen to Carmelo Well up to musical excellences like Keith Jarret. In 2010 the management passed to the artist's children, Roberta, Gabriele and Daniele Russo, who have kept their original theatrical vocation, acting in the wake of their father's foresight but projecting it into the new millennium: they continue to produce and host shows of notable cultural and , taking the sign of the times, have enriched and diversified the activities of the structure, opening up to collaborations and the organization of cultural initiatives and activities of various kinds.