American skates to Carmen medley

American figure skater Mirai Nagasu skated a beautiful long program last night to a medley from Carmen, which drew both from Bizet's music directly and Sarasate's "Carmen Fantasy" for violin. Friends I was watching with were convinced it was the 1812 Overture, but I was able to pull the opera-employee card and kindly correct them. Much has been made of the music choices of figure skaters lately, both in the local and national press. For what it's worth, last night seemed to involve the least amount of synthesized voices, choppy cuts, and tacky re-mixes. Plus there were plenty of composers for classical fans to pick out (Bizet! Rachmaninoff! Saint-Saens! Gershwin!).

I think this is it for blog posts connecting the Olympics to opera, I'm frankly surprised I could squeeze out three. But if anyone out there can think of something else before Sunday, let us know in the comments section!