Julian Medforth Budden OBE FBA (9 April 1924 in Hoylake, Wirral – 28 February 2007 in Florence, Italy) was a British opera scholar, radio producer and broadcaster.
His parents were the then professor of architecture at Liverpool University, Lionel Budden, and a poet, writer and journalist Maud, (née Fraser) who from 1938 until 1964 provided the rhymes for the strip Curly Wee and Gussie Goose, which was syndicated in newspapers throughout the world.
His operatic awakening occurred at school when a touring company with piano accompaniment and spoken recitatives performed The Marriage of Figaro.
Then came his major study of Verdi, built on the foundation of "patient archival research, practical musicianship, a sense of history, and wide cultural sympathies", with every opera covered by a detailed discussion of the literary background, compositional process, and the music as part of the drama.
[4] After leaving the BBC, he was based in both London and Florence (where he spoke fluent Italian), where he was a regular correspondent for Opera magazine and was a presence at the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani in Parma.