In my earlier post on Russian art and music around the United States in February, I mentioned a high-definition broadcast of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on Feb. 24. It's an interesting program and I thought it was worth a bit more ink (to use an antiquated term from my profession).

Between now and April 28, the Met will be streaming live Saturday matinee performances of six operas to theaters around the world that are equipped with high-definition screeens and surround sound. The broadcasts all start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Ticketing is limited, and, while pricier than your average movie at $18 for adults and $15 for children, these shows will be a fraction of what it costs to hear the Met live, and that's before you factor in Manhattan's outrageous charges for parking.

Eugene Onegin will feature American soprano Renée Fleming and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. I have not had the opportunity to hear Hvorostovsky sing live, but there are video and audio clips aplenty on his Web site. There are also 91 Hvorostovsky recordings available for download on Apple's iTunes site.

For those of you not familiar with the opera, Tchaikovsky wrote it in 1879 and based it on the 1832 novel of the same name by another great Russian cultural light, Aleksandr Pushkin. The story, in a nutshell, is of a cad, Onegin, who treats a young woman badly and winds up killing his best friend in a duel. A cad, indeed. The opera is sung in Russian, and you can read the libretto in Cyrillic here.

(Those of you whose adoption journeys go through St. Petersburg may be able to squeeze in a side trip to the town of Pushkin. The town, originally called Tsarskoye Selo, was the summer residence of Russian tsars. Pushkin, who was descended from Russian nobility, wasn't from Tsarskoye Selo. But the Bolsheviks liked his politics and decided to rename the town after him. I was there in 1982, and it was beautiful.)

One other HD opera broadcast note: On Feb. 13, the Met will broadcast I Puritani using the same system. While this is an Italian opera, it will feature Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. She looks a lot like a contestant on America's Next Top Model, but her voice is amazing.