David Franklin was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singer and broadcaster

Presenter

A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

.

Born in London in 1908, David Franklin originally trained as a schoolteacher. A bass singing in amateur productions, he was discovered in 1934 by John Christie, the founder of the Glyndebourne festival

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...

. In 1936, at the age of 28, he made his professional debut as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

at Glyndebourne. He sang with both the English

English National Opera

English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...

 and Welsh

Welsh National Opera

Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...

 National Opera companies. He was leading bass at Covent Garden

Royal Opera, London

The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...

 from 1947. A throat condition forced his retirement from professional singing in 1951.

He taught at St Albans School in Hertfordshire during the 1940s and early 1950s, directing many School productions during this time.

On retirement, Franklin turned to writing and broadcasting. He wrote the libretto for Phyllis Tate

Phyllis Tate

Phyllis Tate was an English composer known for forming unusual instrumentations in her compositions. Her musical style has been called avant-garde and she is recognized for appealing to amateur performers and children....

's opera The Lodger

The Lodger (opera)

The Lodger is an opera in two acts composed by Phyllis Tate. The libretto is by David Franklin, after the 1913 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes...

. An excellent raconteur, Franklin was, from 1966 to 1973, a panellist on the light-hearted radio panel game

Panel game

A panel game or panel show is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by guest contestants, such as on Match Game/Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait.....

 My Music, chaired by Steve Race

Steve Race

Stephen Russell Race OBE was a British composer, pianist and radio and television presenter.-Biography:Born in Lincoln, the son of a lawyer, Race learned the piano from the age of five...

. Ill health forced him to retire in early 1973 during the eighth season of the show. He was replaced initially by Owen Brannigan

Owen Brannigan

Owen Brannigan OBE was an English bass, known in opera for buffo roles and in concert for a wide range of solo parts in music ranging from Henry Purcell to Michael Tippett...

 and later, after Brannigan's sudden death, by John Amis

John Amis

John Preston Amis , is a British broadcaster, classical music critic, music administrator, and writer. He has been a frequent contributor for The Guardian and to BBC radio and television music programming....

. He died shortly afterwards at his home in Evesham

Evesham

Evesham is a market town and a civil parish in the Local Authority District of Wychavon in the county of Worcestershire, England with a population of 22,000. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon...

.

Literature

• His autobiography Basso Cantante was published in 1969.
• D. Brook: Singers of Today (Revised Edition - Rockliff, London 1958), 90-93.
• Percy Scholes
  Percy Scholes
  Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music...
  
   and Michael Kennedy
  Michael Kennedy (music critic)
  Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948...
  
  : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  1996) ISBN 978-0192800374.