TASTE - GOOD OR BAD

I was idly listening to the radio while I was driving today. A theatrical producer, whose name I didn't hear, said, in the context of producing Mozart operas in modern settings, "I don't care what Mozart would have thought. What would Mozart think a bout a tram, about underwear, about the Internet? Nobody can possibly know, so it's a pointless question." Fair enough, I suppose, although at a fairly superficial level.

Then he went on to say, "Of course, Shakespeare is in dreadfully bad taste." What? WHAT? WHAT? What the hell is that all about? How can anyone possibly make a comment like that? OK, I suppose it is possible to say that something is in extremely bad taste, but even that is a matter of context. White western middle class society (see, I'm already defining the context) regards spitting in public as bad taste. Most of the crude pornography that infests the 'net is in bad taste. But Shakespeare? I don't think so.

Can a genuine work of art ever be in bad taste? It may go out of fashion, but that's an entirely different thing. And I'm not going to join in a post-modern deconstructionist frenzy. I don't even understand what "taste" means - if anyone in the blogosphere happens upon this post and has any ideas, I'd love to know.