We know you don't give a tinker's toss about ballet. You're sitting there, sipping your latte, looking ahead to a series of beer flights and bearded folkie shows this weekend. That's fine. We like that stuff, too. What you may not know about Swan Lake, though, is this: it's a bone-breaker.

Who, those tiny-ankled waifs in flouncy tutus? Yep. Ask prima ballerina Isabella Boylston of the American Ballet Theatre, as CNN did, about the difficulty of ballet. She recalled, "One of the toughest things I had to do was Act II of Swan Lake ... You have to stand very still on one leg in a position called B+ for what seems like an eternity, after jumping and doing hard dancing. Your feet cramp and everything hurts ... I had tears streaming down my face ... It's the same with ‘Black Swan Pas de Deux' from Swan Lake. But I don't focus on the pain. We love what we do."

Okay, but it's a show about dancing birds, right? Yes and no. It's a show about a princess, Odette, who's been transmogrified after running afoul (no pun intended) of an evil wizard and were-owl, Von Rothbart. Tchaikovsky may have based his version on the tragic life of Bavarian King Ludwig II, whose sigil was the swan. Swan Lake was a flop in its 1877 debut, with critics claiming the score was too busy and boisterous for dancing. This is no light-hearted romp. Spoiler alert: both Odette and her beau, Prince Siegfried, die at the end; and in some versions, Von Rothbart gets away scot-free.  We haven't even told you what happens to Natalie Portman.

Ballet evolved in a pre-cinematic era of oversize theatrical spectacle, and Swan Lake is no exception. The music is epic, the dancing athletic, the story romantic, and people are flinging themselves into lakes right and left. It's "the ballet of all ballets." It's as Russian as Russia gets, which is why you owe it to yourself to see the Russian Grand Ballet's production as it glides through Tacoma. Artistic director Constantine Pinchuk and an ensemble from the revered ballet schools of Moscow, Kiev and St. Petersburg promise a three-act, four-scene extravaganza. Prima ballerina Akari Kawasaki Sinyavskaya won the VI International Ballet Competition and was recognized as an Honored Artist of Ukraine. She leads an all-star cast performing one of the most popular stage entertainments of all time.

In the words of critic and New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb, "What War and Peace is to the novel and Hamlet is to the theater, Swan Lake is to ballet - that is, the name which to many people stands for, and sums up, an art form."

Swan Lake, 7 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 15, Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, $29-$85, 253.591.5894