Rebuilding the Bellini Name

Three months after their wedding, the city of Palermo witnessed the grand opening of the Isabella Bellini Music Conservatory. The historic nineteenth-century opera hall had been fully restored to its gilded Renaissance glory under Elena’s direct supervision. The crumbling plaster had been replaced with hand-painted gold leaf, the acoustics perfected by Austrian sound engineers, and the old dressing rooms converted into eighty private practice studios equipped with brand-new pianos and…