" Somewhere Over The Rainbow" Over the Rainbow was voted the best song of the twentieth Century by the Recording Industry.
For many, it will recall Judy Garland's iconic role as the lttle girl from Kansas who went off to see the Wizard of Oz and her many adventures on that journey.
This version, by the wonderful operatic singer Renee Fleming, is a totally different approach. First of all, the arrangement is so sumptuous and fully orchestral,it would rival any operatic aria written in the twentieth century by Puccinni, the acknowledged master of the bel canto singing style as heard in his La Boheme or Madam Butterfly. Renee Fleming invests her performance with a passion that illuminates the masterful harmonic of composer Harold Arlen that enhances the melody with which almost everyone is familiar.At MGM, Producer Arthur Freed had to fight studio executives who though the song was too advanced and complex to be appreciated by a mass 
audience.Fortunately, Freed prevailed. In addition,the lyrics of E.Y.Harburg have given hope to so many people. In a way,his words encapsulate the once defiant optimism  of an earlier era in America, something that now seems to have disappeared.
I would urge you to listen not with the nostalgic memory of the Garland film but as a classical vocal and orchestral composition. Right at the end ,Fleming creates her own cadenza, a trope that allows singers, musicians and composers to improvise
a personalized ending based on the main themes of Arlen's composition.