Based on a cycle of seven short plays by Arthur Schnitzler, published in 1893 and first staged in 1910, The Gay Life focuses on womanizing playboy Anatol von Huber.

Directed by Gerald Freedman and choreographed by Herbert Ross, the cast included Walter Chiari as Anatol, Barbara Cook as Liesl, and Jules Munshin as Max, with Elizabeth Allen as Magda and Leonard Elliott as Franz.

Owing to the new meaning which the term "gay" had acquired since the show's original staging, its title was changed to The High Life when it was presented in concert by the off-Broadway Musicals Tonight!

Howard Taubman, reviewing for The New York Times, called the show "colorful, cheerful, and leisurely in an Old World way" and wrote: "The nicest of all the gemutlich...is Barbara Cook.

John Wilson, reviewing the album in The New York Times wrote that "relieved of the encumbrance of the book the score is sunny and lilting with extremely hummable songs.