Was born in Eichstätt/Bavaria. Here he studied musicology before entering the Musikhochschule München, where Ernst Häfliger, Hans Hotter and Erik Werba were his teachers. Already in 1986 he gave his debut with the Gaertnerplatztheater München.
After some years in München, Coburg and at the Komische Oper in Berlin he started his international career in 1992 with productions of Busoni`s “Turandot” in Lyon and Mozart`s “Figaro” in Pretoria.
Since 1994 the artist is regularly appearing at the Vienna State Opera: in more than 200 performances he sang Ochs, Orest, Morosus, Rocco, Caspar, Leporello, Papageno, Osmin, Figaro, Sarastro, Wozzeck, Daland and Pogner.
Franz Hawlata gave his very successful debut with the Metropolitan Opera (Ochs) in February 1995, with La Bastille in Paris (Mahagony) in October, and in November 1996 he was the highly acclaimed Leporello at the Royal Opera House in London, where he returned with Ochs in 2000. All these houses signed him for new productions during the years to come: he returned to the Met with Ochs and Sparafucile, in Paris he was Ochs again, the Water Goblin (Rusalka), Wozzeck and LaRoche (Capriccio).
Guest appearances brought the artist also to San Francisco (Ochs), Tokyo (Ochs and Sparafucile with the Met), Chicago (Daland), Torino (LaRoche), Florence (Sachs), and to the Staatstheater Meiningen, where he sang his first Wotan in 2001. In 2003 and 2004 he appeared at the Aalto-Theater in Essen as Hans Sachs  and Ochs. He has been signed to sing in München, Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona and San Diego, where he sang Wozzeck in English. In 2007 he gave his debut as Hans Sachs at the Bayreuther Festspiele.
The same year he will sing his first Barak in Chicago.
Franz Hawlata was Osmin i n Salzburg in 1997 and 1998. He returned to the festival with
Leporello and a recital in 1999, in 2000 and 2001 he was Don Alfonso in “Cosi fan tutte”, followed by Ochs in 2004 and  Osmin again in the Mozart Year 2006.

Among his numerous audio productions are: lieder by Carl Loewe (with Juliane Banse and Helmut Deutsch), Spohr`s opera “Faust”, Loewe`s opera “The three wishes”, German opera arias and an all-Verdi recital, Marschner`s opera “The Vampyr”, Nicolai`s “Merry wives of Windsor”, Dvorak`s “Rusalka”, Beethoven`s “Leonora” , Franz Schmidt`s “Buch mit sieben Siegeln” and Berlioz’ “Benvenuto Cellini”.
Very requested in concert and lied as well, Mr.Hawlata is performing in all great halls throughout the world.