The competition was the "initial impulse" for The Building of the Boat, the 1893–1894 project in which Sibelius had aspired to write a mythological, Finnish-language  on the subject of Väinämöinen. But Sibelius's opera foundered on the shoals of self-doubt and artistic evolution.
The competition served as the initial spark for "The Building of the Boat," a project Sibelius undertook from 1893-1894 to compose an opera in Finnish about Väinämöinen. However, his opera faced challenges due to self-doubt and artistic evolution.