For a considerable period, Sibelius worked on an opera, "Veneen luominen" (The Building of the Boat), again based on the "Kalevala". To some extent, he had come under the influence of Wagner, but subsequently turned to Liszt's tone poems as a source of compositional inspiration. Adapted from material for the opera, which he never completed, his "Lemminkäinen Suite" consisted of four legends in the form of tone poems. They were premiered in Helsinki on 13 April 1896 to a full house. In contrast to Merikanto's enthusiasm for the Finnish quality of the work, the critic Karl Flodin found the cor anglais solo in "The Swan of Tuonela" "stupendously long and boring", although he considered the first legend, "Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island", as representing the peak of Sibelius's achievement to date.