Music of the ice: Beyond 'Phantom of the Opera' in skating's soundtrack

Have you been watching the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul this week? Hope you really, really like the soundtracks to "Moulin Rouge" and "Les Miserables."

That's because multiple competitors this year are skating to the same music — or variations or selections of the same music. It happens every season.

The right song can make or break a program — and in rare cases if it works well, it can become the stuff of legend. Remember ice dancing duo Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's "Bolero"?

But the days of hearing the same 10 songs on repeat might be over. A recent rule change now means that skaters can use vocal music in their programs, expanding their options significantly. Hello Beyonce, goodbye Beethoven?

An International Skating Union official told The New York Times in 2014 the change was motivated "by the desire to encourage participation in the sport."

"The young people requested to have vocal music with lyrics because it is more connected to the music of today, and they like to skate to the music they are hearing," said [Fabio] Bianchetti, a member of the governing body's technical committee for singles and pairs skating.

Jim Peterson, a coach and choreographer to Olympic and national pairs teams, offered some insights into navigating the sport and the art of figure skating through music — and why some selections come back year after year (after year).

What makes a good song for a skating program?

"The trick is finding a piece ... that is going to affect the audience and judging from an emotional level, and find something that is going to connect with the skater and show the skater's strengths off and really make that connection," Peterson said.

"We are a sport but we're also an art. We need to have a combination of the two. Finding a piece of music that brings that all together is the ultimate goal."

How important is it to have the right song?

Peterson calls it the "absolute secret weapon."

A piece that connects to the audience can influence the judges.

"There is that emotional aspect. We're not being judged by computers, we're judged by human beings," he said.

Why are some songs perennially popular?

We're looking at you, "Carmen."

It seems that every skater, at some point, has skated to Georges Bizet's opera (Michelle Kwan, Evan Lysacek, Sasha Cohen, pairs team Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov — they're all part of this group).

But it can be downright awkward when two or more skaters do it at the same competition, which is exactly what happened at the 1988 Olympics with American Debi Thomas and Germany's Katarina Witt. Their skate-off was dubbed "The Battle of the Carmens."

Simply put, the warhorses are there for a reason: They work.

"They're very 'skateable,'" Peterson said. And because they're familiar and comfortable, they often get the audience's attention and support very quickly, he said.

Other popular selections year after year — but especially in Olympic years, perhaps as a strategy for that very reason — include "Scheherazade" (Evan Lysacek and ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White all won gold with it), "Swan Lake" (ditto for Oksana Baiul), "Nessun Dorma" from the "Turandot" opera and the soundtrack to "The Phantom of the Opera."

Have lyrics changed anything?

"It's completely opened up our world," Peterson said. "The human voice is such an amazing instrument and really, I think, puts emotionality out there more easily than perhaps a full orchestra."

Popular songs this year

Music from Queen is in vogue this season. The soundtrack to "Moulin Rouge" is also popular with athletes at nationals this year — defending ladies champion Ashley Wagner is skating to the soundtrack — and there's also a tune called "Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascends" by The Piano Guys making the rounds.