The Chocolate Soldier

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From the cover of the Piano Score

The Chocolate Soldier is an operetta by Oscar Straus based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 Arms and the Man. The libretto was by Rudolph Bernauer and Leopold Jacobson. As Der tapfere Soldat, it premièred in 1908 at the Theater an der Wien under the baton of Robert Stolz, but had only moderate popularity, perhaps due the the Germans' distaste for the pacifist plot.

The first English-language version premiered in New York, translated by Stanislaus Stange, on 13 September 1909, where it was the hit of the Broadway season. It was revived in 1910, 1921, 1930, 1931, 1934, and 1947. Its London premiere at the Lyric Theatre in 1910 was also a tremendous success, running for 500 performances. The operetta was also filmed (as a silent movie) in 1915.

[edit] Background

When Shaw had given Leopold Jacobson the rights to adapt the play, he had given three conditions: none of Shaw's dialogue, nor any of the character's names, could be used; the libretto must be advertised as a parody, and Shaw would accept no monetary compensation. Shaw despised the result, calling it "a putrid opera bouffe in the worst taste of 1860," and grew to regret not accepting payment when, despite his opinion of the work, it became an international success.

When Shaw heard, in 1921, that Franz Lehár wanted to set his play Pygmalion to music, he sent word to Vienna that Lehár be instructed that he could not touch Pygmalion without infringing Shaw's copyright and that Shaw had "no intention of allowing the history of The Chocolate Soldier to be repeated" (Pygmalion was eventually adapted by Lerner and Loewe as My Fair Lady, but this was possible only because they were, at least in theory, adapting a screenplay co-authored by Shaw, with rights controlled by the film company.)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tried to make a filmed version of The Chocolate Soldier in 1940, but were refused permission (or at least permission at a reasonable price) by Shaw. Instead, Louis B. Mayer bought the rights to Straus's music, and used the plot from Ferenc Molnár's play Testőr (also known as Playing With Fire and Where Ignorance is Bliss, and ultimately adapted by Philip Moeller as The Guardsman with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) as the plot of The Chocolate Soldier starring Nelson Eddy and Risë Stevens, incorporating music from other works as well.

[edit] Synopsis

The operetta is set in 1885, near the Dragoman Pass, in Bulgaria.

A Swiss mercenary in the Serbian army, Lieutenant Bumerli, hides from the Bulgarians in the bedroom of Nadina Popoff, the daughter of a Bulgarian colonel, setting female hearts on fire. Nadina's wedding is ruined when Bumerli is recognised as a fugitive, but in the end Nadina finds true love with Bumerli.

While Arms and the Man carried a pacifist message, and had political overtones, The Chocolate Soldier does not.

The operetta was continually reworked during Straus's lifetime. Among those songs that were dropped is the (now) amusingly titled "Why Is It Love Makes Us Feel Queer?"; the more well-known songs include "My Hero", "Thank the Lord the War Is Over", "Sympathy", "Seek the Spy", "Tiralala", "The Chocolate Soldier", and "Forgive".

The plot of the 1941 film concerns the jealousy of a pair of Viennese singers, Maria and Karl Lang. To test her loyalty, Karl masquerades as a Russian guardsman and tries to seduce Maria. Complications ensue.

The film includes the following non-Straus selections: