On a December day in 1892, eager Farmington residents boarded a special round-trip train to Lewiston for a concert by the world-famous opera star, Madame Nordica. The concert created a buzz around town because the performer, known locally as Lillian Norton, was a hometown girl.

Lillian was descended from many of the area’s early settlers. She was the youngest daughter of Edwin Norton, who had farmed on Holley Road for several years, then briefly ran a local boardinghouse before moving his family to Boston in 1864.

Nordica’s talent had taken her far from provincial New England. At the time of the Lewiston concert, she resided in London, where she was a star performer during the opera season in that city’s prestigious Covent Garden. Her Lewiston appearance was part of a tour that would have her performing across the United States into the next year.

Lewiston’s City Hall was “filled to its utmost,” according to a report in the Farmington Chronicle. The local account was vague about her repertoire that night, as the reporter was probably unused to writing about opera. However, the affection for the performer was unmistakable, and she was greeted with “a perfect storm of applause.”

One of America’s first divas was dressed resplendently in rose-colored velvet and lace, and adorned with diamonds.

The highlight of the evening came during the encore when Nordica sang the popular “Home Sweet Home.” “I felt it so much that I mixed my words,” Nordica told friends later, but her obvious emotion only added to the moment. She was called back to the stage for bows several times before her adoring home-state crowd would let her go.

In the audience was Arbo Norton, one of Nordica’s few close relatives remaining in Farmington. He and the rest of the Farmington group were treated to a special audience with Nordica after the concert.

More adoring audiences were waiting across America, and Nordica could not linger in Maine. Wrapped in rare Alaskan silver fox, the diva left her home state for performances in far-away cities such as Chicago and Kansas City before ending the tour in New York. Her stay in Maine had been brief, but she gave her hometown fans an evening to remember.

The Farmington Chronicle correspondent observed that the former farm girl “walked a queen.”

Note: This year the Nordica Day Concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 2 in Nordica Auditorium on the University of Maine at Farmington campus. The concert features tenor Richard Gammon.

Luann Yetter has researched and written about local history for the Sun Journal for 10 years. She teaches writing at the University of Maine at Farmington and may be reached at [email protected].