- - If you love 'Wizard of Oz' you need to hear Judy Garland's a capella 'Over the Rainbow'

Melissa Ruggieri, USA TODAYNovember 7, 2025 at 11:19 PM

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After Lorna Luft experienced “The Wizard of Oz” at Sphere Las Vegas, she was awestruck.

“I sat there with my son and daughter and their kids and when the film started I gasped,” she says. “We all grabbed each other’s hands and just thought, ‘This is going to be the ride of our lifetime.’ And it was.”

Luft, the half-sister of Liza Minnelli and daughter of legendary Judy Garland, whose Dorothy remains a pop culture icon nearly 90 years after “Oz” debuted, audibly levitates when talking about the film.

But along with the breathtaking cinematic sweep that takes audiences from the sepia-toned farm in Kansas to the kaleidoscopic universe of Munchkinland and the Emerald City is the film’s other lynchpin – the music.

“The Wizard of Oz at Sphere: The Soundtrack,” is available now on digital platforms and, like its celluloid counterpart, also received a glow up.

The original film score was painstakingly performed and rerecorded for the Sphere version of the film by an 80-plus-piece orchestra on the same scoring stage used for the original in 1939. The musicians used techniques common in the era – pizzicato strings and vibrato phrasing – to maintain the period-accurate sound and also commissioned the same ocarina used on the original recording of “If I Only Had a Brain.”

The soundtrack to "The Wizard of Oz" at Las Vegas Sphere includes an a capella version of Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow."

More: This is how 'Wizard of Oz' at Sphere Las Vegas took Dorothy from 2D to 4D

Judy Garland a capella 'Over the Rainbow' is the soul of 'Oz' soundtrack

But the centerpiece for “Oz” fanatics and aficionados of flawless vocals alike is the a capella version of Garland’s “Over the Rainbow,” which has never been heard before.

“I was really, really taken aback,” Luft, 72, says about hearing the unadulterated version for the first time. “This is a 16-year-old person (Garland’s age when filming) who wasn’t in any kind of a sound booth. She did that live in front of the orchestra. She also didn’t know where the song really was going to go in the first script because it was recorded before principal photography began. To sing that song was an incredible talent, but also as an actor, to bring that song to life and knowing those lyrics are all about hope and finding a better place.”

Recording engineers separated the original vocal stems from the music, exercising the same type of AI technology used to fashion The Beatles’ final recording, “Now and Then,” in 2023.

Garland’s voice – innocent, glasslike and imbued with natural emotion and gentle breaths – is a wondrous instrument.

“We know there are singers who sing really well, but they can’t make you feel the emotion of that lyric,” Luft says. “It’s just her purity and her vocal ability. It was just the perfect the song and the perfect movie.”

Luft shares that Garland did five takes of “Rainbow,” with the final movie version a mix of the first and last performances.

“Every single time she did it, the emotion was there,” Luft says.

"The Wizard of Oz" at Sphere Las Vegas has an accompanying soundtrack, released Nov. 7, 2025.Lorna Luft calls Sphere 'Oz' the 'the greatest party'

The “Wizard of Oz at Sphere” soundtrack offers 42 tracks, including the trio of character signatures (“If I Only Had a Brain,” “If I Only Had a Heart,” “If I Only Had the Nerve”), immortal singalongs “We’re Off to See the Wizard” and “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” and familiar overtures.

“Optimistic Voices" ranks as Luft’s second-favorite piece of music in the famed score. The high-register vocals chime “You're out of the woods / You're out of the dark / You're out of the night / Step into the sun, step into the light” as Dorothy and her ragtag pals emerge from the poppy field, onward to Oz.

“I love the melody and what the song says,” she says. “It’s in everyone’s mind, the notion of ‘you’re out of the woods, you’re out of the dark’.”

Luft embodies the spirit of the song even further with her live show of stories and songs, called Optimistic Voice.

Since “Oz” premiered at Sphere in August, it has reignited affection for the classic tale of Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion (and Toto) as they follow the yellow brick road to meet the wizard.

More than 1 million tickets have been sold for multiple screenings almost daily, with dates added through May (for now).

Though film purists raised concerns about the use of AI to enhance and expand certain scenes now being shown on a 160,000-square-foot 16K-resolution LED screen instead of the original 4:3 aspect ratio, Luft said she was never worried about the final product.

“I’ve seen this movie throughout my life and I’ve said to several people, you can still sit at your TV and see the other version, so don’t get upset,” Luft says. “I never got concerned because after seeing just a tiny bit of it I knew it was going to be great and amazing. I tell people, when you go see it, stay for the credits and look at how many people worked on this. You can tell how much care (there was) and how they didn’t do anything but enhance the movie … the whole experience was like the greatest party I’d ever been to.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Wizard of Oz at Sphere' stuns with a capella 'Over the Rainbow'

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