Phantom of the Opera | Golden Skate

Phantom of the Opera

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Brian Boitano has a routine to Music of the Night that he has done quite a few times over the years. He did it in the Salute to Movie Music special last year, with Frank D'Ambrosia (who sang the Phantom on stage) singing live.

http://www.skatetoday.com/articles0405/photos/tina/dsc_1369.jpg

I think this is a standard, almost a warhorse, LOL, that has been used by many skaters at all levels. I did a search on the Skate Music site

http://www.skatemusiclist.com/index.html

and came up with a whole page of references (Urbanski and Marvel, Alexei Urmanov, Shepard Clark, Zaretski and Zaretski, many, many more).

MM
 

SingAlto

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Dorothy Hamill, Robin Cousins, Kavarikova & Novotny... The list goes on & on. Boitano's version of Music of the Night is the ultimate, imho.
 

sk8er1964

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Thanks!

I was advised that as an adult skater I should probably steer away from music that National level judges would associate with elite skaters. I would hazard to guess Phantom falls into this category!

Back to the drawing board..... :eek:hwell:
 

CDMM1991

Medalist
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
sk8er1964 if you skated a different piece than is most popular for elite skaters that could be ok, or even a different cut
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
What about Urmanov? I know he did one in Pro Competition and it was quite good. That guy should have gone into dance. He would be a star now at the Maryinsky.

Joe
 

ladybug

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
I really loved Brian Boitano's Music of the Night. When he skated that program I actually got chills watching him. I would love to see Michelle skate to it. If not a competitive program then at least an exhibition but MK seems to enjoy using more popular current music for her exhibitions.

Ladybug
 

merrywidow

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
I recall a lovely, professional routine performed by Watson & Oppegard to music from "Phantom". The other 2 routines that stand out in my mind were Boitano's & Dorothy Hamill's.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
I'm not a Boitano fan so I'm not exactly going for praising him except for his ability to win medals. He deserves them.

As an artist though, I see him as very limited. At his best, imo, he uses schmaltzy music from opera and broadway and I can't tell whether there is a difference in his emotions. Certainly his facial expressions are always the same.
JMO

Joe
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Joe, I guess you didn't see Brian performing Wild Elephants. It was very different for him and you could tell he was having fun. I've always enjoyed Boitano's skating because of the clean lines and power (IMO). Another favorite program is Carousel Waltz.

Some of Boitano's more recent programs have been contrived lately, but a lot of skaters seem to go this route as they get older. Between not having the same technical abilities and trying to come up with something different, you get either 'tried and true' or 'too gimmicky'. I think it's tougher for the guys to be more creative in the longer term.
 

SingAlto

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Joesitz said:
I'm not a Boitano fan so I'm not exactly going for praising him except for his ability to win medals. He deserves them.

As an artist though, I see him as very limited. At his best, imo, he uses schmaltzy music from opera and broadway and I can't tell whether there is a difference in his emotions. Certainly his facial expressions are always the same.
JMO

Joe

And his artistry sucks, and he only skates to opera, and all his does is jump, and he telegraphs his Lutz jump, and he can't really dance, and he has cheesy shows with the same cheesy skaters, and he's a 41-year-old bachelor living in San Francisco and we all know what that means, and he isn't college educated and Orser should've beaten him in Calgary because his artistic skills were far superior...

Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you: The many failings of Brian Boitano. :sheesh:
 

mememe

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 20, 2004
ladybug said:
I really loved Brian Boitano's Music of the Night. When he skated that program I actually got chills watching him. I would love to see Michelle skate to it. If not a competitive program then at least an exhibition but MK seems to enjoy using more popular current music for her exhibitions.

Ladybug

I was lucky enough to be in the audience when Brian brought back "Music of the Night" and skated to it with Franc D'Ambrosio singing live at the Tribute to the Movies show. It gave me chills, too. What a magic performance! It wasn't anywhere near as good on TV as it was in person -- all the camera cuts to the singer and (heaven help us) movie clips were really disruptive, but it was still great to see he could do this "signature" so well so many years after he first performed it.

I've so enjoyed following Brian's career, for one thing because he hasn't been satisfied to just do "Music of the Night" over and over again (to different musical backgrounds). While big, sweeping pieces are certainly his forte and those are among my favorite programs of his, I've also enjoyed things like "Big Man on Mulberry Street," "Just Kiss Me," "Wild Elephants" (what a surpise THAT one was to the entire audience at Ice Wars when he debuted it), "Blue," "Since I Fell For You" (a four-minute-plus program that had no jumps -- well, four split jumps, but no rotational jumps -- when he did it as an encore in the 1989 Tour of Champions), "Our Hero" and, most recently, the wonderfully clever (IMO) "He Just Wants to Cha-Cha." He's tried some things that didn't work particularly well — "Rapper's Delight" comes to mind -- but he hasn't been afraid to try, and most of what he does I find creative and enjoyable to watch. And I appreciate that he's experimented with different choreographers and styles, going to experts in the field -- all of whom have seemed to find him sufficiently creative and "artistic" to enjoy working with him and be happy with what they created together.

I look forward to (hopefully) many more years of "chills" and thrills from Mr. Boitano.

However, I would say that anyone who wanted to try "Music of the Night" should go ahead and do it. I don't tend to think any piece of music "belongs" to anyone. I may think of Brian B. when I hear "Music of the Night," but I'm just one. A lot of folks don't even know he did a program to that. Just like Bolero -- a lot of people have never heard of T&D's program to Bolero. While I didn't think it worked for Michelle Kwan last year, I had no problem with her using it if she wanted to do it.
 

Crizzy

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
I'm not a Boitano fan so I'm not exactly going for praising him except for his ability to win medals. He deserves them.

As an artist though, I see him as very limited. At his best, imo, he uses schmaltzy music from opera and broadway and I can't tell whether there is a difference in his emotions. Certainly his facial expressions are always the same.
JMO

Joe, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel :p
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Well, judging by this Wild Elephants number, he actually attempted something 'cute'. Wasn't that a 'pro' number? He had no choice. Once up against the great Browning he had to do something besides schmaltzy music.

Skaters, using opera and ballet themes are like lipscynckers, imo. When the music swells, are we ooohing and ahhhing the composer or the entertainer?

btw, Brian living in SF and its implication means nothing about his skating skills.

Joe
 
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Jhar55

Medalist
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Love Phantom of the Opera, only seen the movie that came out this year and love the music. Is the music hard to choragraph because a lot of it is more lines in the movie instead of songs. I think the new song Learn to be Lonely is beautiful. Got three copies of the movie.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Love Brian Boitano, hated Wild Elephants.

Who told Brian he had funk?

But Joe, I have to say, I love ooohing and aaahing to those grand old compositions. What about Shen and Zhou's Turandot at 2003 Worlds? Was it Xue and Hongbo that had us bawling like a baby, or Puccini? Did we care?

Mathman
 

SingAlto

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Joesitz said:
He had no choice. Once up against the great Browning he had to do something besides schmaltzy music.

btw, Brian living in SF and its implication means nothing about his skating skills.

Joe

The great Browning? Whatever shellacs your shillelagh and floats your boat, I suppose.

As for the mention of Brian living in SF and its supposed implications, I only mentioned that because it seems that on this message board the only time Brian is even mentioned is to either knock his skating or to question his sexuality.

Btw, here's a list of the music Brian has skated to in the past 17 years. It's quite varied and non-schmaltzy, actually.

Brian's music
 
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