Best and worst warhorse performances | Golden Skate

Best and worst warhorse performances

G

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Choose a piece of music that has been overused in figure skating over the decades.

Give at least one example of an excellent interpretation of that music, and at least one example of a skater who lets the music do the artistic work for them with minimal effort toward choreography and interpretation.

There may or may not be a direct connection to the success of the elements or the quality of the skating skills. But try not to use a disastrous performance or a skater with weak skating skills as the example of poor interpretation. What I'm interested in is skaters whose interpretation of music that is supposedly easy to interpret leaves much to be desired. (Maybe they did better on other occasions or with other programs . . . or on other aspects of what's covered under IJS program components, but this one didn't really showcase interpretive skills.)

My choices:
This was an all-time great performance to music that (IMO) is structured to do a lot of the heavy lifting for the skater

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I'm almost sorry that performance was so great, because it led to many other performances to the same music that were not so great.

Here are some good ones:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

And some lazier attempts at interpretation

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
Here is Sasha Cohen's finest performance ever, Swan Lake at 2004 Marshalls cheesiest. The first time she ever beat Michelle Kwan and maybe the first time she ever got through a whole program and hit every jump. :)

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
My example would be Vivaldi's Winter (I will not post any links because you probably have seen best and worst versions many times). This music can be a great vehicle because the allegro part favors showcasing spins and step sequences (I wonder if Lambiel was the first who skated to it? :scratch2: Probably not because this is a very popular piece of music; but he definitely rediscovered it as an effective IJS era warhorse) and it provides good build for jumps. However, if spins are slow and/or the footwork is not perfect, this warhorse can throw skaters out of the saddle and draw attention rather to their flaws. That's why I would not recommend this piece for beginners and juniors... but they keep skating to it, alas :(

The worst that I have seen is when the choreographer is aware that skater's footwork is not good enough and hence uses the fastest section of music for the crossovers before jump. The music is supposed to go the fastest when the skater accelerates which in theory sounds good. In practice though, skaters need to drop the speed right before jump and especially junior skaters tend to drop the speed early and take a long preparation phase. So, eventually, the allegro goes boom on its own while the skater slides solemnly on one foot finding the balance for the upcoming jump - which ruins every aesthetic impression and draws extra attention to all flaws that this skater may have: footwork not good enough, no confidence with jumps, inability to interpret music... This will hurt both GOE and PCS. Don't do it to your kids, ye warhorse breeders! :no3:
 
Last edited:
^ Here is my favorite Vivaldi (17-year-old Patrick Chan, 2008 Candian Championship. I don't know exactly why, but his performance is just tiotally satisfying to me

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
Mathman said:
^ Here is my favorite Vivaldi (17-year-old Patrick Chan, 2008 Candian Championship. I don't know exactly why, but his performance is just tiotally satisfying to me

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
Click to expand...
the joy of a 17 year old winning his first of what ? 10 national titles ?
 
Sasha Cohen was always great with bringing a fresh interpretation to warehorse music. I really enjoyed her 2002 Carmen program too.

I also loved Shizuka Arakawa's 2004 Worlds Turandot program. I never loved Turandot, but Shizuka's interpretation made me enjoy it and feel the music. I can't point to a worst but none of the other Turandot programs were memorable to me.
 
Mathman said:
Here is Sasha Cohen's finest performance ever, Swan Lake at 2004 Marshalls cheesiest. The first time she ever beat Michelle Kwan and maybe the first time she ever got through a whole program and hit every jump. :)

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
Click to expand...
Nutcracker at Worlds 2005 (no falls, a couple of not so good landings) unfortunately, Sasha was up against Irina's skate of her life, otherwise might have taken a title :(

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
That was yet another warhorse, not my favourite program of hers but undeniable well choreographed and of course who was better at a ballet program than Sasha? No one!
 
The Godfather makes it as a warhorse.

The Browns were brilliant to it. 4cc's was better, but US Nationals was good

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be


Candeloro? Not as much

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be
 
yfan1 said:
Witt's Carmen (good) vs Zagitova's (bad).

Sasha Cohen's Nino Rota Romeo and Juliet at 2006 Olympics (excellent) vs everyone else (poor to outright bad).
Click to expand...
Yes, Alina was, I think, the worst Carmen ever. It was just a combination of too young a skater totally not in the story and a very questionable choreo. I remember there was a move she repeated a few times throughout the program so obviously it was supposed to be meaningful, it looked to me like a skier efficiently and cheerfully pushing herself off with the ski sticks ( I wish I could make a gif. ) What was the meaning of it in the context of Carmen I never understood but it made me laugh - not quite an appropriate reaction to the tragic story!
 
yfan1 said:
Witt's Carmen (good) vs Zagitova's (bad).

Sasha Cohen's Nino Rota Romeo and Juliet at 2006 Olympics (excellent) vs everyone else (poor to outright bad).
Click to expand...
I re-watched recently Sasha's R&J and I honestly think that it was the best choreographed program ever. If ever was a story told very convincingly over 4 min it was that one. The reason I did watch was Mone Chiba's R&J ( I know different music!) but in terms of storytelling it was, well, nothing to me, just a good skating to a beautiful music, no connection to the story that I could feel as a viewer that there was a tragic love story, it could have been anything...

On other hand, Sasha's R&J I see like that:
Part One - first awakening of love, premonition of tragedy ahead
Part Two - love meets with adversity
Part Three - a triumph of love over death

Nino Rota + David Wilson+ Sasha = The Masterpiece
 
Tutto said:
Yes, Alina was, I think, the worst Carmen ever. It was just a combination of too young a skater totally not in the story...
Click to expand...
My favorite example of a "too young to play Carmen" performance was this one by 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu. The "Carmen's little sister" program.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

@Anna K Thanks for reviving this thread!
 
My example will be Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini:
Good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk4PGcUHEFA (Mark Mitchell, 1994, AP)
Not as good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6dIVuAegpg (Yuzuru Hanyu, 2010, junior FP)
Found another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlC6HXZ1dg (Totmianina/Marinin, 2004 SP)
It's not a bad program, but the climax asks for a spiral sequence, not a dismount from a lift and connecting steps into a death spiral.
Of course, it's not fair to compare a 6.0 artistic program with IJS short and long programs, esp. junior ones, but I think it was not necessary that they should all be from the same scoring system, and a fair comparison?
I will not mention a recent show program that I think is very bad, let's be positive.

Lambiel was not the first to skate to Winter for sure, here are some other examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8bosaG3fJ8 (Carolina Kostner, from the same Olympic event)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deFLKcHK4A (Usova/Zhulin, 1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVnRAWkyP5M (Surya Bonaly, 1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOMDOu3xMpo (Petrova/Tikhonov, 2001)
 
ilovebudgies said:
I also loved Shizuka Arakawa's 2004 Worlds Turandot program. I never loved Turandot, but Shizuka's interpretation made me enjoy it and feel the music. I can't point to a worst but none of the other Turandot programs were memorable to me.
Click to expand...
Shen and Zhao 2003 Worlds was another wonderful Turandot.

And this raises an additional point. For many of these Warhorse, the plot of the actual storyline is not really very interesting, nor are the characters. But in the case of Turandot, the music of Puccini sweeps all before it. All a skater has to do is let the music sweep her/him/them away, too, along with the audience.

The example given on the OP of this thread, John Curry's canonical Don Quixote, illustrates thits There is no miming of tilting at windmills or any such thing in the performance, but the program is great because he responds to and embellishes every note of the music, never mind what Cervantes' story is about. (Of course, Curry had access to actual ballet choreography as a guide.)
 
Last edited:
Not sure I consider Curry's version canonical. I actually don't know which one is. To be honest, I am not a fan of this ballet altogether. It's has been changed a lot since 1871, things have been added, Petipa's corps de ballet replaced by asymmetric mass movements by Gorsky, which is very hard to take in. When a crowd of people does stuff in sync it looks cool and clean, when they each do their own thing, it's a chaos. Petipa lengthened it, then a few more dances were added to it, some taken out, some added, etc. etc. it's a joint work now. I am not even sure a single version of it is produced now, but the one I watched was 3 hours long, when 2 hours would have been enough. Something is not right with it. When you watch other ballets, they feel complete, but DQ feels like a collection of numbers with not much connection between them. Music being bland, it just feels too long. Cervantes' story feels a bit long too IMO. I am not a fan of the collection of them. In FS programs they use the same cuts. Because there is no clear personage to portray, but this music also lacks Spanish character. I think my favourite is Takeshi Honda's SP from 2002.
 
Last edited:
Isk said:
Not sure I consider Curry's version canonical. I actually don't know which one is. To be honest, I am not a fan of this ballet altogether. It's has been changed a lot since 1871, things have been added, Petipa's corps de ballet replaced by asymmetric mass movements by Gorsky, which is very hard to take in. When a crowd of people does stuff in sync it looks cool and clean, when they each do their own thing, it's a chaos. Petipa lengthened it, then a few more dances were added to it, some taken out, some added, etc. etc. it's a joint work now. I am not even sure a single version of it is produced now, but the one I watched was 3 hours long, when 2 hours would have been enough. Something is not right with it. When you watch other ballets, they feel complete, but DQ feels like a collection of numbers with not much connection between them. Music being bland, it just feels too long. Cervantes' story feels a bit long too IMO. I am not a fan of the collection of them. In FS programs they use the same cuts. Because there is no clear personage to portray, but this music also lacks Spanish character. I think my favourite is Takeshi Honda's SP from 2002.
Click to expand...
I think that the Ballet storyline has very little to do with the novel? Basically it's a village idyll. On Kitri's side Alina Zagitova is one of my preferred (in Ballet my preferred Kitris are Natalia Osipova and Svetlana Zakharova) because I feel that this part needs an extremely energetic ballerina and Alina Zagitova's interpretation fuelled that high energy. (By the way, she said herself that she already wanted to skate to Carmen but was told that she wasn't mature enough yet; her coaches accepted to promise her a Carmen program should she win Gold at Olympic; she wasn't mature enough but I didn't find it a catastrophe either? She must have felt the problem, because the next year, her Short Program was Flamenco and she showed way more maturity.) This is also a music that allowed a choreography hiding her technical problems, particularly her lack of glide. A perfect match.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
Mathman said:
Shen and Zhao 2003 Worlds was another wonderful Turandot.

And this raises an additional point. For many of these Warhorse, the plot of the actual storyline is not really very interesting, nor are the characters. But in the case of Turandot, the music of Puccini sweeps all before it. All a skater has to do is let the music sweep her/him/them away, too, along with the audience.

The example given on the OP of this thread, John Curry's canonical Don Quixote, illustrates thits There is no miming of tilting at windmills or any such thing in the performance, but the program is great because he responds to and embellishes every note of the music, never mind what Cervantes' story is about. (Of course, Curry had access to actual ballet choreography as a guide.)
Click to expand...
For Turandot, I understand that the plot was very meaningful to Puccini, with the main part being his bossy? wife Elvira, and Liu being his probable mistress (or love interest) Rose Ader. I mean, the love triangle was meaningful to him and he imagined an implausible synopsis set as far away as possible in time and space, furthermore allowing him to dive into Chinese melodies for some of the airs. But if a skater just wants to skate to the music without considering the plot, it's fine!
 
As to canonical Romeo, in terms of "eternal Romeo character", I've never seen any better than Yuzuru Hanyu at 2012 Nice World Championship. He has both the intsneity of the young and the depth of pain usually displayed only by more mature actors, who lack in the former:
The "classic" version with Tracy Wilson's commentary (she had never met him yet) has been taken down.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Y
Any interest for past Olympic rewatches?
2 3
Replies
44
Views
2K
yfan1
Y
A
Skaters who improved their Skating Skills program component over time
2 3
Replies
55
Views
7K
Mista Ekko
M
cocteautwin
ISU Congress 2026
2 3
Replies
54
Views
6K
paulusfr
P
gsk8
The Best Queen Programs
2
Replies
20
Views
1K
Adeline14
A
gsk8
Yuna Kim vs. Mao Asada – Vancouver 2010
Replies
18
Views
3K
usethis2
U
Back
Top