Five decades of Carmen (This is long, sorry about that!)
Started to think about the development of artistry in figure skating yesterday and remembered Carmen. I have been tracking use of Spanish style pieces of music over the years and Carmen is obviously the Nr 1 among all of them (though Malaguena probably comes as a surprisingly close 2nd). The performances cover about 50 years starting from 1962. Altogether close to 200 programs, most of them in the 2000s!
The first one is
Don Jackson in 1962. It is amazing to hear that the same cuts are used as in the most recent Carmens. But if the music was not playing, it would be impossible to know he was skating to Carmen - the artistry has nothing to do with style or character. He does things timed to highlights and tempo in the music, but otherwise the music does not seem to inform the movement. There is a certain aesthetic to it, but the intention is not to make the movement express the emotions evoked by the music, rather to show off his jumping and steps (the spins are a bit shaky…). The special arm movements are related to making the jumps more difficult.
My favourite 1970s Carmen comes from Russia,
Vladimir Kovalev in 1976. It is his SP, and it does not really get much better than this. There is a rudimentary torero costume, but the most wonderful thing is that the choreography has those Spanish dance/flamenco poses, the hints to bull fighting and all. The arm and upper body movement is just brilliant all around.
As a comparison, Linda Fratianne did also her
SP to Carmen that year The sound is unfortunately off sync with the picture in this video, so the first 2A was probably intended to go with the music highlight. This really does not compare to Kovalev at all, the music could be almost anything. She does
Carmen as FS in 1979–80 and won the Olys with it. Still utterly bland despite some attempts to character and style in the middle part, most of the time the movement has really nothing to do with the music (and she gets 5.9s with that!).
From the 1980s, there are not that many Carmens, but then there is The Carmen,
Katarina Witt FS 1988. She had lost most of her old jumping prowess by that time but managed enough tech difficulty to keep the others behind. But the choreo and her performance are beyond comparison: style, character, and story all in 4 minutes. (And I forgive the almost 20 s standing break in the middle because she makes it worth watching.) The drama in the way she does the last minute holding the knife wound… There were altogether 4 Carmens in the women that season, but the others are really not worth mentioning.
It is hard to get excited of the remaining decades after Kovalev and Witt kind of set the standard. Most don’t get even close to those two. But some examples from the 1990s and the IJS era.
Viktor Petrenko SP 1991 Loads of crossovers, but okish style and sharpness.
Eric Millot LP 1993 Not one of his finest moments, bland choreo that could have been skated to anything. Steps set to a flamenco dancer’s steps is hardly ever a good idea, this attempt included.
Silvia Fontana LP 1996 She looks the part, had the style, but nothing special about this one.
Michelle Kwan SP 1999 This has a slightly different take on the music but ends up looking like many of her other programs. The steps set to a rhythmic clapping?/steps? are clumsy and have nothing of the stylishness that maybe was intended. She was not a great character actor or a storyteller.
Irina Slutskaya FS 2001 Generic Spanish dance style poses with getting stabbed in the end as a reminder of what this was actually about. Think she used more time prepping her jumps than develping a character.
Sasha Cohen FS 2002 The choreo tries to introduce a lyrical and almost vulnerable Carmen which is a bit funny because the music is Don Jose confessing his love to Carmen who disses him wholeheartedly afterwards. There is an attempt at style and storyline I guess, but most of the movement really has little to do with what is going on in the music. She grits her teeth together in an effort to show how sassy she is...
Evgeni Plushenko FS 2002 Am not quite sure what the choreo aims at, the Spanish dance is there here and there, but not a whole lot of it. Both step sequences are clumsy and devoid of any flare or character. He is of the old world with the first minute doing not much more than crossovers and the big jumps and with almost 20 s of standing around in the middle. If you watch Yagudin from the same season, you can easily see that his program could have been done a decade later under IJS.
Evan Lysacek FS 2007 This is probably one of the few attempts at doing a Don Jose – or so I have interpreted it. Usually, for men it is the torero who has only a minor role in the whole. Not sure if he is stabbing himself or Carmen. Evan just was not a great performer overall.
Adelina Sotnikova SP 2014 This is a risky choice, but she is good with this character. The style and attitude are there, to the point, the movement is to the music, sharp, finished. I like this better than what the 6.0 1990s legends did.
Giada Russo SP 2014 This is a junior performance with one of the rare sung soundtracks. Giada could not jump that well, but she sure has The It factor when it came to performance even as a junior. This has the style, the attitude, character and choreo that goes with the music.
Alina Zagitova FS 2018 (Around 39 min, this is the whole women’s FS.) This kind of ticks all the boxes, the style, the character, moves to the music, a sort of a storyline. All’s there on a plate, but let’s face it, Zagitova was never a performer in the true sense of the word. She made me realize for the first time what
gkelly meant asking us to imagine a skater who has perfect timing of the elements, but who despite that does not really make it work on an emotional level at all.
Maxim Kovtun FS 2019 Could have been Kolyada from the same year but liked Kovtun’s costume better. Both did generic Carmens, the moves were there, but neither managed to produce anything particularly special or impressive.
Carmen has been a favorite because it gives an instant character, style, and storyline just with the music. You add a suitable costume and voilà, it’s already almost a performance even without moving at all. In most cases, some poses from Spanish dance style, sort of flamencoish feel here and there and that's a generic Carmen. However, because it is so well known, it is also difficult to get anything new out of it. For men, the aesthetics and artistry of Carmen have been very similar since the 1970s and Witt has been an influence for women since 1988. IJS has not changed the way the theme is approached, the same kind of movements are being used now as in the 6.0 era. But I do think the general development and understanding of choreography has made the match between the movement and music actually better than before.
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