'Like a Bomb Going Off,' by Janice Ross
In the land that produced it, "Swan Lake" had become a curse. "I want to pull my hair out and stuff it down the directorate's throat!" complained Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, venting her ire at hearing Tchaikovsky's overture for her most famous role. But Soviet officials so prized "Swan Lake's" soothing beauty and its orderly, militaristic rows of leggy young women that the ballet was like a national anthem, p…