The Chocolate Soldier

In the middle of the night, a Swiss mercenary fighting for the Serbs takes shelter in the room of a young Bulgarian woman, who agrees to hide him. Though the room is thoroughly searched by Bulgarian soldiers, they fail to find him. The fugitive soldier confesses to the young woman that he carries chocolate in his ammunition bag rather than bullets. He describes to her the horrors of war. He is pragmatic and skilled in warfare but has a weakness for chocolate. She gives him some chocolate creams. The young woman’s mother and maidservant discover him and agree to protect him and keep her secret. They help him escape by giving him her father’s old coat, each of them secretly placing their photograph in the pocket as a memento.

Raina, the young woman, is engaged to Sergius Saranoff, a Bulgarian officer serving under her father, Colonel Petkoff. Sergius has accidentally won a great victory and in her eyes is a magnificent hero.

Six months later, Colonel Petkoff and Sergius return from the war and are welcomed back into the house. They relate an amusing story they heard about some Bulgarian women who gave shelter one night to a retreating Serb soldier.

The Swiss mercenary whose name is Bluntschli appears. He has come to return the coat they loaned him. It turns out that Petkoff and Sergius know him from a deal he made with them during the war. They admire his strategy and perception. He is invited to stay a few days and help the Colonel with the military problems of returning his regiment.

Sergius flirts with Louka, Raina’s maid, who has designs on him, and intends to marry “well”. She tells him that he has a rival in Bluntschli for Raina’s affections. Sergius tumbles to the fact that it was Bluntschli who was the retreating soldier, and Raina the Bulgarian woman that sheltered him. He challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but before it can take place, the Swiss soldier receives news of his father’s death and that he is now a very wealthy man. When Sergius’ flirtatious attentions to Louka are discovered, the Petkoffs are happy that Raina should marry Bluntschli instead.

Raina Petkoff – A young assured and headstrong woman living in the provinces in Bulgaria, and born into the wealthy Petkoff family. She has romantic misconception of war and soldiering.

Bluntschli – A Swiss mercenary fighting for the Serbs, and Raina’s love interest, who she calls her “chocolate soldier.” He is skilled in warfare and emotionally sophisticated, but has a weakness for chocolate.

Sergius Saranoff – Raina’s fiancé, and the hero of the Battle of Slivnitza. Sergius, by his own and many others’ admission, has no military skill. He revels in presenting himself in a heroic and arrogant fashion.

Catherine Petkoff – Raina’s mother, and matriarch of the Petkoff household.

Louka – The Petkoffs’ female servant. Louka has a vexed if flirtatious relationship with Sergius, who is engaged to Raina. Louka wants to better her social station by marrying a noble.

Major Petkoff – Head of the Petkoff family, and Raina’s father. The Major is a decent if unambitious soldier, and he seems concerned mostly with maintaining his family’s social position in the rural parts of Bulgaria.

Massakroff – A Bulgarian soldier.  At first, he appears a ruthless, if witless officer, but later shows a rather more sentimental side.

Oscar Straus (6 March 1870 – 11 January 1954) is remembered today as a Viennese composer of operettas, film scores, and songs. His most famous film score is that for the 1950 film of La Ronde, and his most often performed operettas are Ein Walzertraum (A Waltz Dream), and The Chocolate Soldier (Der tapfere Soldat). He also wrote about 500 cabaret songs, and numerous orchestral and choral works.

His original name was actually Strauss, but he decided to deliberately omit the final 's' because he wished to disassociate himself from the famous waltz family of Vienna. It was Johann Strauss II who advised him to forget about writing Viennese waltzes and to concentrate instead on of writing for the theatre.

He studied in Berlin under Max Bruch, and first achieved success there as an orchestral conductor, When he returned to Vienna he began writing for the theatres and cabarets, and when Lehár's The Merry Widow premiered in 1905, Straus allegedly remarked  "Das kann ich auch!" (I can do that too!).

In 1908 he joined forces with librettists Rudolf Bernauer and Leopold Jacobson to compose a new piece based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. Shaw was most reluctant to see his play turned into an opéra bouffe and at first flatly refused. Finally he weakened and gave Jacobson the rights to adapt the play. He made 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. In spite of this, Shaw's original plot, and with it the central message of the play, remain more or less untouched. 

From a business-like point of view this was a very bad decision on Shaw’s part because although the Viennese premiere of Die Tapfere Soldat (as it was called in German) at the Theater an der Wien on 14 November 1908 received a somewhat luke-warm reception, once the piece was translated into English as The Chocolate Soldier, it became a huge hit in New York and London.  It ran for over 500 performances at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue and was revived regularly until the Second World War when a production at the Shaftesbury Theatre was destroyed in the blitz.

Shaw despised the result however, calling it "a putrid opéra bouffe in the worst taste of 1860", but grew to regret not accepting payment when, despite his opinion of the work, it became an international success. The Chocolate Soldier has made in royalties far, far, more than Arms and the Man ever has, despite its many revivals.

Straus was Jewish and fled Vienna for Paris in 1939, after the Anschluss. When Paris too fell to the Nazis he moved to Portugal and finally to the United States where he settled in Hollywood and worked on film scores.  After the war he returned to Europe, and settled at Bad Ischl in Austria, where he died in 1954.