David Franklin

Henry Cyril Franklin (17 May 190822 October 1973), known professionally as David Franklin, was an English opera singer and broadcaster. His professional singing career, which began in 1936, was twice cut short, first by army service in the Second World War and then by a throat operation in 1951, which badly affected his singing voice and forced him to retire. He made a second career as a writer and broadcaster, becoming known to a wider public through his appearances on the BBC radio shows My Music and Twenty Questions. Early years Franklin was born in London in 1908, the son of Henry James Franklin, a joiner, and his wife Jane Maria, née Chapman. He was educated at Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and worked as a schoolmaster from 1930 to 1935, singing as a pastime. In 1931 he married Hilda Bickell, with whom he had two sons and two daughters; the sons both died in infancy. After lessons from the singing teacher Jani Strasser, Franklin auditioned for Fritz Busch, the musical director of Glyndebourne and was invited to perform at the 1936 Glyndebourne Festival, playing the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and the Second Priest in The Magic Flute. In the latter work he was promoted to the role of Sarastro for the 1937 Festival, in succession to Alexander Kipnis. The Times said of him: In 1938 he again sang the Commendatore and added Banquo in the English premiere of Verdi's Macbeth, to the Macbeth of Francesco Valentino. In addition to opera, during the late 1930s he established himself as, in the words of The Times, one of the country's leading oratorio basses.