If it's still available on LISTEN AGAIN, you might like to check-out THE OPRICHNIK. It's a slightly troubled work, and in fact Tchaikovsky later disowned the piece, wishing he'd never written it. You can somehow hear why? It's almost as though he passed the baton to Rimsky-Korsakov in this work, written as it is in the "Evil Olde Russian Dayes Of Yore" style (in which Rimsky excelled). If one is ever looking for a work in which Tchaikovsky came near to what "The Five" were up to, this is it - and it might be part of the reason why PIT tried to distance himself from the piece later?
There is, however, some astonishing music in it, even if the pacing of the dramatic side of the work has Rimsky's turgid touch to it. There are some longish "epic" scenes (quite different from the fast-paced cinematic style of Onegin or Mazeppa) and full-on breast-beating angst. There's a very decent duet between Andrei and his Mother-In-Law-To-Be ("they must not execute you, you should not die!") in Act I, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Lyubov/Maria duet in MAZEPPA?
Unfortunately the latter half of the opera rather runs out of steam - mainly because a full head of steam was built-up somewhat over-early in the piece. The end, however, has all the trappings of a Jacobean tragedy, with stagefuls of stiffs and gloating evil relations cackling over the bloodshed.
With appropriately over-the-top Olde Russianne costumes and sets, it would be well worth reviving as a curiosity, and I'm surprised that no-one has done so... it fell out of the Bolshoi's repertoire during the 1970's when Professor Boris Pokrovsky (who hated all this "Olde-Russian" tosh and brought in a wave of Verdi and Puccini instead) was in charge. As far as I know, it's not in the repertoire anywhere at all at present. It's certainly no worse in the "hoary chestnut" field that Rimsky's BRIDE FOR THE TSAR, and I commend it to all on 3
[this is one of the pieces "Marathon Man" RW saw fit to broadcast at 02:30am - a fate this opera certainly didn't deserve]
