NEW YORK — Despite occasional saber-rattling between the Soviet Union and this country, glasnost has had some happy results, the most recent of which is the visit of the Bolshoi Opera to the Big Apple, the first since 1975. Like most cultural centers in Europe, the Bolshoi (both its operatic and balletic wings) is heavily subsidized. And it remains one of the chief modes by which the Soviets can impress international audiences.

Though there were some empty seats in the performances of Tschaikowsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and Rimsky-Korskov’s “Mlada” at the Metropolitan Opera House on Lincoln Center on June 29, those gaps probably did not worry the commissars unduly, since the company hardly depends on box office receipts as our cultural organizations do. What would trouble them more would be a poor critical reception of their most prestigious artistic media.

Truth to say, the performances I saw were assuredly not on the level of the Salzburg Festival, the Munich National Opera or, indeed, of our own august Metropolitan Opera. Nonetheless, there is a school that veers toward the position that only a native company can perform indigenous works authentically.

It seems to me that the Bolshoi production of that adorable opera “Eugene Onegin” proves my point, for the recent Metropolitan version was in every way superior to the production the Bolshoi unveiled here, not least because it boasted the services of the great lyric-coloratura Mirella Freni. Certainly the Bolshoi put its best foot forward, but the sets were a trifle shabby and the singing second-rate. Surely the country villa of Mme. Larina is not a magnificent palace, but here it looked taped together by rolls of masking tape.

The final act, however, set in Prince Gremin’s palace in St. Petersburg was indubitably elegant, a fit setting for the whirling dance that opens the act, this done by women in attractive black and white gowns and by men in formal dress.

Still, the performance as a whole was routine, bland in the extreme. Only Nina Rautio as the frustratred Tatiana rose above the banal. Although her soprano had that typical Russian edginess, she did make all her registers work. The famous letter scene, a grueling assignment, was carried off with much aplomb, a highlight of the performance. Unhappily, her Onegin (Nikolai Reshetnyak) was utterly leaden, not helped an iota by the hit-or-miss direction. Thus, the culminating scene of his flirtation with Olga, Lensky’s fiancee, and its subsequent challenge of a duel went for nothing as the principals were gobbled up by the incessant busyness of movement on the part of the chorus. The Lensky — tenor Arkady Mishenkin — had a nasal sound that was distinctly unpleasant. On the whole, then, the production lacked the panache with which a really sterling conductor can invest the score.

Frankly, I had never heard of “Mlada,” which was one vital reason why I shot off to New York to see it. Having seen it, I know well enough why I had not encountered it heretofore. It is a frightful bore. A pastiche, it reminded one here and there of “Swan Lake,” “Giselle,” even “Parsifal” in the scene in which Prince Yaromir is tempted by Cleopatra. The opera — actually it is as much balletic as operatic — is so heavily laden with symbolism that the central message that Virtue triumphs over Greed is pretty well glossed over.

The singing, by and large, was strident on the part of both men and women. And the dancing, while fleet, was not of the virtuosic kind that we normally associate with the Russian temperament and training. The conductor, Aleksai Stepanov, drew more vital playing from the Bolshoi orchestra than had his colleague Fuat Mansurov during the afternoon performance of “Onegin.” And the staging was infinitely more imaginative — though still very old-fashioned by Western standards — than that for “Onegin.”

Whatever reservations one may have concerning the quality of these productions (which will be given — along with Tschaikowsky’s “Maid of Orleans” — through July 6 in New York and then at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia from July 11 through July 15), it is highly important that cultural exchange take place. We must see (and appraise) what the Russians are doing just as they must observe our activities.

And while these beneficial exchanges go on, there will be far less saber-rattling. For art, after all, is the most civilizing agent we have.

Robert Newall is a freelance writer who lives in Hampden.