Ariana Grande’s graceful performance of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ was the perfect balance of virtuosity and emotion

5 June 2017, 11:54

Ariana Grande closed the One Love Manchester show last night with a stirring, delicate version of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’.

It was a performance charged with emotion, but Ariana Grande turned it to her advantage as she sang. Her voice was strong throughout the whole of the One Love Manchester concert, but the rawness of the occasion began to seep through by the time it came to the final song, ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’.

A lesser soprano would have strived simply for technical perfection, but Grande made the right decision by letting her emotions colour and direct the performance, no more so than when towards the end of the song, clearly exhausted, Grande broke into tears and stopped - taking time to compose herself before continuing, showing enough maturity to know that to be honest in performance is far better than being accurate.