The opera focuses less on the narration of the four young protagonists’ story and more on their attempt to articulate and understand the often contradictory feelings that come with it: feelings of meaninglessness and alienation in a society that values only productivity and success but makes it unreachable for almost everyone; feelings of pain, both as suffering and as sexual experience; feelings of love and kinship that briefly appear between the protagonists but nevertheless bring a sense of vulnerability. In a hyper-competitive world the display of emotions is seen as a weakness and a liability. The longing to open up to someone else, to reveal and feel oneself and one another, and to find an expression for that longing seems unsettling and dangerous.