So long, winter. We hardly knew ye! Spring arrives this afternoon at 5:24 EDT.

Last night on “The Lost Chord,” I presented highlights from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Snow Maiden.” The work is an allegorical fairy tale of humans, quasi-mythological creatures, and the eternal forces of nature, with the story of a star-crossed love bringing about the end of a 15-year winter.

Rimsky’s opera, composed in 1880-81, was based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, which was first presented in 1873 with incidental music by Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) and Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) shared something of a complicated rivalry. In public, they were genial and even supportive of one another, while in private both grappled with suspicion and envy. By the mid-1880s, Tchaikovsky achieved such eminence that Rimsky found himself creatively paralyzed. For his part, Tchaikovsky swore his publisher to secrecy about his use of a recently-invented instrument, the celesta, to characterize the Sugar Plum Fairy in “The Nutcracker,” so nervous was he that Rimsky would steal his thunder.

Tchaikovsky’s untimely death finally lifted some of the pressure. Rimsky exorcised his demons by setting Nikolai Gogol’s short story “Christmas Eve,” a work Tchaikovsky had already adapted as an opera twice: in 1874, as “Vakula the Smith,” and in 1885, as “Cherevichki” (“The Slippers”). Rimsky’s own operatic version of the tale appeared in 1895.

Rimsky was only 50 when he began work on “Christmas Eve,” but it proved to be the start of something of an Indian summer for the composer. 11 of his 15 operas followed. By the time of his death at the age of 64, he could be said to have been every bit as revered as Tchaikovsky.

Thanks to the orchestral suite Rimsky distilled from “The Snow Maiden,” at least some of his music is better-known, especially “Dance of the Tumblers,” which is a favorite for drive-time radio. The best-known bit from Tchaikovsky’s version, which honestly has never really caught on to the extent that Rimsky’s has, is also his “Dance of the Tumblers.”

Winter isn’t over until a ray of sunshine strikes the Snow Maiden. All hail Yarilo, Slavic god of vegetation, fertility, and springtime!

Tchaikovsky, “Dance of the Tumblers”

Rimsky-Korsakov, “Dance of the Tumblers”

Tchaikovsky, Complete incidental music to “The Snow Maiden”

Rimsky-Korsakov, Suite from the opera “The Snow Maiden”