Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge of figure skating and its history.It had definitely been used before 1988. The most prominent examples that come to mind were Donald Jackson and Charlie Tickner. But yes, I think that "Battle of the Carmens" did create more of a mystique, and it was also around that time that it became more common to try to interpret a character from an opera etc. rather than just the phrasing of the music.
Do you know any of his three symphonies? The Second is especially sublime, and I'm tremendously fond of the first movement of the Third. And I have no idea whether this is even skateable, but my goodness, the first movement of The Bells, which is a Poe poem (a lyrical poem, not a horror one) set to music. It has vocals in it, but not in an obtrusive way where you have to understand the words, and some variation of tempo. This performance has the words in Russian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OE59h6OzrE