ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that how regional opera institutions and forms, such as the SYC, are increasingly marginalized through a national award system which was aimed at further maintaining Party legitimacy. Urban opera has evolved increasingly into a high art, through luxurious and grand settings, representing the legitimized rule of the party-state. Only when opera companies win the approval of the art election system may they be considered legitimate. As the market is still a state dominated market, without the support of the government it is difficult for the opera company to gain legitimacy and be recognized as the legitimate art. With little central government and regional government support the SYC struggles to gain legitimacy. Under the party-states increasingly intensified unification policy, yueju struggles to represent both the voices of the regional grass root mass population, as well as the prosperous and unified China, just as the party-state struggles to represent the increasingly polarized class segregation and the multicultural national identity.
