The Moscow Arts Festival on Broadway kicked off its two-production season late last month with a production of The Cherry Orchard by the Sovremennik Theatre.

Nov. 19 marks the opening of the second production of the festival, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which is being presented by the Novaya Opera Company (their name means "new") with a cast of 55 singers and a 60-piece orchestra.

Evgeny Kolobov directs the opera, which has a text by K.S. Shilovsky and Tchaikovsky based on Pushkin's1831 poem about honor and unfulfilled love.

Eugene Onegin includes some of opera's most famous moments: the Act I "Letter Scene" -- in which the teenage heroine Tatiana pours her heart out in a passionate missive to the title character -- and the waltz scene at the top of Act II.

The work had its premiere in Moscow in 1879 and has long been acknowledged as Tchaikovsky's theatrical masterpiece. The opera has long been a mainstay of international repertories; the Bolshoi Opera performed Eugene Onegin in New York in 1991, and last season the opera received a new production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York's Lincoln Center. Eugene Onegin is being performed in Russian with English supertitles through Nov. 30 at the Martin Beck Theatre. For tickets, call (212) 947-8844.

-- By Rebecca Paller