ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Shanghai urbanization and its impact on its regional opera form, yueju; it analyses the relationship between taste and class and explores answers to the question: can high economic investment and grand performing venues revive yueju and allow the SYC to regain economic success and cultural distinction. In particular the proposition is examined that Shanghai's swift urbanization through government concentrated economic capital and control over all social fields greatly damages people's habitus and limits their taste. The chapter illustrates that how taste and class are under reconstruction in the hands of the regional government, aiming for a new distinction through economic power. The Shanghai Municipal government invested in the production of luxury opera, facilitated regional opera to enter the luxury space of the Shanghai Grand Theatre and raised ticket prices, all of which were aimed at reconstructing a new taste of yueju to suit the distinction of new millennium Shanghai.
