The Winter's Tale (opera) The Winter's Tale (opera) The Winter's Tale is an opera in three acts by Ryan Wigglesworth. The libretto is by the composer, based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. The opera, in a production directed by Rory Kinnear, and conducted by the composer, was premiered at the English National Opera on 27 February 2017. The opera follows the main story of the play, reduced to three acts, and dropping the character Autolycus, and some other well-known features of the play such as Antigonus's stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear". Act I is set in Sicily.
All the world's a stage based primarily upon Palingenius' book "Zodiacus Vitae", a school text he would have studied at the Stratford Grammar School, which also enumerates stages of human life. He also takes elements from Ovid and other sources known to him. All the world's a stage "All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's "As You Like It", spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 138. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as