Mariinsky Ballet's 'Swan Lake' is magical
It's as though both of Russia's major ballet companies have been caught in the unyielding grip of a polar vortex. Bitter fissures have cracked through their elegant facades: Valery Gergiev, general director of St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, comprising its opera and ballet, has been met with protests for his support of President Vladimir Putin, whose homophobic laws have galvanized not only gay athletes but the …