Based on Edna Ferber's sprawling 1941 novel Saratoga Trunk, it focuses on Clio Dulaine, an "illegitimate" Creole woman who seeks revenge on the New Orleans family who exiled her mother when she became impregnated by their son.

Posing as a countess raised in France, she joins forces with Montana cowboy Clint Maroon, whose family's property was appropriated by railroad tycoon Bart Van Steed.

She first approached Rodgers and Hammerstein with her proposal, and when they opted to write Pipe Dream instead, she turned to Lerner and Loewe, who agreed to compose the score but lost interest after My Fair Lady opened.

The Broadway production, directed by DaCosta and choreographed by Ralph Beaumont, opened on December 7, 1959 at the Winter Garden Theatre, where it ran for 80 performances.

Show Boat, with its riverboat setting, had been a natural for musical adaptation, and whereas Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern had succeeded in compressing the epic into a lively stage production, the creative team behind Saratoga was unable to wring much excitement from a romantic relationship stemming primarily from a mutual desire for vengeance.