It is unfortunate that R-K's operas are so under-appreciated. The suites drawn from them are readily available, but watching the DVDs or listening to the recordings of the complete operas, one discovers that much of R-K's best music is in his operas, more innovative and varied than that of the core repertoire we so often hear from him. There were 16 operas, I think.
One interesting discovery in his operas involves his innovative compositional techniques, using whole tone and octatonic scales, especially in his fantasy segments. The resulting harmonies were considered quite radical to Western ears at the time, although to us, now, the music seems quite conventional. But of course, those who learned from him, including Stravinsky and others, pushed their use further than he did.
It is the operas containing fantastical and fairy tale elements that were most creative (to me), such as Mlada, The Snow Maiden, Kashchey the Immortal, The Tale of Tsar Saltan. In these, he employed lyrical and lushly melodic music that we associate with R-K (like Scheherazade) for "real world" segments of the operas, with the whole tone and octatonic music for the fantastical and magical segments. This turned out to be (to me) quite an interesting and successful compositional strategy.
For those unfamiliar with R-K's operas, I personally prefer the DVDs, since I did not grow up with opera and need the visual guidance and subtitles.
