I thought the opera was okay. I was a bit dull, but then again, the story is supposed to be depressing, and the sets really showed that. The dominant color was drab gray, the most depressing color in my opinion. And the music was certainly more modern than what I'm used to in opera, when I see works such as die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute by Mozart) or der Fleidermaus (The Bat by Johann Strauss II) which have more old-fashioned music, that is, 18th and 19th century music. Personally, I didn't really care for the music, and I didn't even notice that dissonance that Bergman talked about in one of her classes. I did notice that when the convicts told their grandiose crimes, the music was unfitting and implying that the storyteller was lying. And when it came to the play within a play (my favorite part, personally) I wasn't uncomfortable at all when the actors were facing the audience, and it seemed to make sense. How else would they be able to show the play? The opera wasn't my cup of tea, but it did do its job in showing the depressing prison situation.