Jessye Norman - Amazing Grace...Wembley Stadium 1988

“For twelve hours groups like Gun’s and Roses have blasted the crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans already high on booze and dope. The crowd yells for more curtain calls, and the rock groups oblige. Meanwhile Jessye Norman sits in her dressing room….Finally, the time comes for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Norman….No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few recognize the opera diva. A voice yells for more Gun’s and Roses. Others take up the cry. The scene is getting ugly.

Alone, a capella, Jessye Norman begins to sing, very slowly:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found –
Was blind, but now I see.

A remarkable thing happens in Wembley Stadium that night. Seventy thousand raucous fans fall silent before her aria of grace.
By the time Norman reaches the second verse, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved…,” the soprano has the crowd in her hands.

By the time she reaches the third verse, “Tis grace has brought me safe this far, And grace will lead me home,” several thousand fans are singing along, digging far back in nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.

Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power descended on Wembley Stadium that night. I think I know. The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.”

-Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace