The 1932 Olympics was the first time
figure skating was set to music. It was
live music. The skaters didn't get to
choose the songs, the orchestra just
played the same one over and over. Fast
forward to today, music is very much the
heart of figure skating and custom-made
for each performance. Oh, but
It wouldn't be a
figure skating competition if there was
no Swan Lake, if there was no Don Quixote,
if there was no Carmen.
This is Adam Rippon.
He's the 2016 national champion and
2018 Olympian.
he has ever competed in,
he says there was at least one skate set
to Carmen.
I mean we love our Carmen what
can I say?
And he's right. There was the
infamous battle of the Carmens in the
1988 Olympics.
German skater Katarina Witt and an
American skater Debi Thomas both
performed their long program to Carmen.
It's time to compare Carmens.
I've skated
to Carmen so I mean like I'm guilty of
my own charge.
So, what makes Carmen
Carmen is an
opera written by a french composer
Georges Bizet about a gypsy girl named
Carmen. So it's not just one song called
Carmen, it's actually dozens of songs and
the most recognizable is probably...
But you probably have heard of this one...
this one...
and this one.
You get the point.
This is...
Carmen is often sassy and flirty and as
you can see, lots of skaters take
advantage of that.
But her story ends
tragically when she's stabbed to death by
her rejected lover.
With Carmen, Hugo and other music designers
can explore a full range of emotions.
This structure allows skaters to start strong
with jumps, grabbing people's attention.
In the slower section, skaters can
show more of a vulnerable side and also
save energy for the big finale
For my short program I wanted to do
something that was a really upbeat that
would get the crowd like on their feet,
everybody clapping.
And then in the free skate I wanted to
show like a softer side, I wanted to show
off my lyrical skating style.
That's why operas are so popular
in figure skating. It's divided into
acts with a clear story line.
We're
gluttons for punishment,
because you know we'll roll our eyes at
somebody skating to Carmen and then on
the complete flipside of that, every year
we'll go to our choreographer and we'll
be like what do you think of this? It's Carmen.
But this long era of Carmen might
be coming to an end.
In 2014 the International Skating Union
changed the music rules to allow skaters
to skate to music with lyrics. It was an
attempt to appeal to a younger audience,
so skaters like Jimmy Ma have traded in
Bizet for...
Lil' John.
When we were given
the option to skate to music with lyrics,
it opened it up to any piece of music
you could ever want to skate to.
Now with
more freedom and access to all kinds of
music, they're looking for their new Carmen.
Will it be Lil' Jon? You never
know.
I found throughout my whole entire
career that if you see somebody doing
something that they really love to do,
that really translates so much, that even
if you're not a big fan of the music you
just enjoy that person enjoying what
they're doing.
And maybe this rule change
will spur a new era in skating, like 1932 Olympics
when the sport was still new.
And the official report quotes,
