Orchestra del Teatro Massimo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini was born in Catania in 1801, and the city gave his name to its principal theatre; the resident orchestra carries it too. The ensemble is the house orchestra of the Etnean lyric institution, working in the theatre on Via Giuseppe Perrotta at the foot of the volcano, and its year divides between the opera season in the pit and concert programmes given from the same stage. Few Italian orchestras are so directly bound to a single composer's memory, or so regularly measured against it.