On the morning of July 29, 1981, the world, well, that is to say, a television audience of 750 million people at least, were intently watching the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

As the 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer alighted from her carriage and ascended the cathedral's steps to walk down the aisle to Mary, then Prince Charles.

When Charles and Diana signed the registry in a chapel outside of Public View, a striking soprano in her late 30 stepped before the cameras and as the orchestra launched into a jubilant Handelion aria, she began to sing.

Keri Tekanoa, a deeply gifted lyric soprano from New Zealand, had already sung on the world's great stages, but with this aria, let the bright seraphim from Handel's Oratorio Samson, sung at this

particular occasion, she became known to the wider world, and she became one of opera's

most sought-after singers, and an even brighter inward dazzling star.

And while the registers are being signed, we shall hear the Ba'ath Choir, the Bach Choir

of which Prince Charles is present, musicians from the orchestras, the Royal Opera House,

Cup and Garden, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, with Miss Kiri,

Tikanoa, soprano, John Wallace, solo trumpet, John Scott, organ continuing.

In the last, aria and chorus from Samson by hand.

Let the bright seraphim in Burning Row.

Let the bright seraphim be burned in Rome. The loft of leap, That same, That same, joyful exuberan aria

Very well, too, just over a hundred years before.

In June of 1877, a completely unknown soprano, barely out of conservatory training, and early in

her career, stepped onto a stage in Boston to deliver the very same aria.

Her silvery voice rising above the sumptuous chords of Handel's accompaniment.

Concert announcements proclaimed the concert would feature military bands followed by eminent vocal talent, which actually even included a chorus of 1100 singers.

The concert program listed our young soloist as Miss Lillian A. Norton, gifted soprano.

And indeed she was.

The audience that day, which included President Rutherford B. Hayes, thought so too.

The voice that Boston audiences heard that day was in some ways to define a generation of

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