Chere Emma: 
A new millenium has just begun and, regrettably, the memory of you and of your artistic achievements have been fading.  However, you would take comfort in finding that this memory is now safely stored, in print, and can be rekindled at any point in time in the future. It reads in part as follows:  

"In the course of a career spanning four decades Emma Albani became the first Canadian-born artist to achieve international fame. Her exceptionally beautiful voice, the solid musical and vocal training she acquired in her youth and later developed in conjunction with the best teachers, her mastery of French, English, Italian, and German, and her quickness in assimilating a new score all contributed to her strong appeal to conductors and composers and made her one of the most sought-after singers of her time." (Gilles Potvin, "Emma Albani").

I would not hesitate to assert, in class, that you were the first person born in Canada, ever to achieve international fame. 
Nobody born in that country -- the learned, the politically powerful, the militarily glorious, not even the socially constructed great white men in history -- had ever received the global acclaim you did in London, Paris, Messina,  Florence, Malta, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Dublin, Monte Carlo, Brussels, Milan, New York City, Glasgow, Stockholm, Mexico City, Vienna and, yes, Montreal and Toronto. 

But if this global success was achieved because of a voice, an astonishing coloratura voice , is it not ironic that it all began , not in French Canada where no such achievement was considered likely by your father, but as a church singer in Albany, N.Y.. 

So
The first truly famous Canadian person throughout the western world is you --  a politically powerless French American female orphan. That is not even really debatable; it's a "fact".
Like Marion Anderson and Paul Robeson, years later, you managed to climb to such Olympian artistic heights by excelling in a highly elitist cultural form, the opera.
Like Calixa Lavallee, the Boston-based composer of Canada's national anthem, this success hinged on a Franco-American experience because success, in Canada,  was out of reach.
 And like other "fallen" celebrities and sport heroes of your day, you had to humble yourself, at the end of your career, to earn a living.
But the memory of you, in print, will not fade away.

With the utmost respect
Jean-Jacques Joseph Arthur Ferland

To learn more:
National Library of Canada's
Emma Lajeunesse Albani - Women's Exhibition - Celebrating Women's Achievements