A ‘Ragtime’ revival percolates with musical verve at Signature Theatre

The voices at Signature Theatre have never sounded more honeyed, or pulsated more urgently, than they do in director Matthew Gardiner’s mellifluously full-bodied revival of “Ragtime.” Based on E.L. Doctorow’s sprawling novel of turn-of-the-20th-century America at a melting-pot tipping point, the 1996 musical percolates in just the right sonic landscape.

Jon Kalbfleisch, Signature’s go-to music director, leads a splendid 16-member orchestra — which amounts to one musician for every 16 ticket holders in Signature’s 277-seat main theater, the Max. It’s tantamount to being ringside at a cast album recording session, listening to the big, sweeping musical strokes in Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s score, a composition apt for a show about our boisterous American pageant.