Does a musical have to break new ground in order to be considered a success? It’s true that Broadway has seen some exciting evolution lately in the form of “younger” works like Spring Awakening and In The Heights. But in an era that’s largely been dominated by jukebox musicals and cinematic retreads, it’s refreshing to see a new production that feels like a return to the old form, and a triumphant one that’s neither nostalgic nor ironic. Good musicals are hard to write, and it’s perhaps not surprising that such a work come from some of the old masters, Kander & Ebb.

The Visit, now being staged at Signature Theater, isn’t completely new – it’s been rattling around for awhile, never really finding a New York home since its Chicago debut in 2001. And while Kander & Ebb protégé Chita Rivera starred in that incarnation as well, it’s hard to imagine, seeing her now, how her imposing, cigar-puffing turn didn’t help propel the work to more success back then.

In The Visit Rivera is Claire Zachanassian, who became the richest woman in the world by marrying well and marrying often, as she says. She’s returned to her economically-depressed hometown, who hopes she will save them, and she will; for a price. Zachanassian’s life hasn’t been easy, despite her wealth, and she has a wooden leg; seeing one of the world’s great dancers playing a lame woman has a freakishly mesmerizing effect, and Rivera has enough control over her body to make it work, even when elegantly dancing around the injury.

It’s not surprising, given Kander & Ebb’s history, that this is a very dark musical, and that’s part of why The Visit works so well. It’s unsettling: the way it plays with our judgment of Anton Schell (George Hearn, whose warm baritone glides through the score), or just through creepy little touches (take Claire’s duo of eunuch manservants, clad in bowler hats and red sunglasses). A similarly black sense of humor is present throughout the show's lyrics, but The Visit still takes itself very seriously. Lyrics can be witty (“Goethe spent a night here,” townspeople brag of their visit) or poignant – Claire’s last ballad, “Love and Love Alone” calls to mind the rueful, qualified optimism of Chicago’s “Nowadays.”

Another trick is that every time it seems like the show might be taking a misstep (a song entirely working around a metaphor of “yellow shoes,” for example), The Visit actually manages to make it work.

The show isn’t flawless – Anton seems to have an awfully lot of ballads, the lithe dancers representing young Claire and Anton show up a few too many times – but director Frank Galati has really brought out the potential in this work. Besides Hearn and Rivera, the skilled cast includes Karen Murphy as a convincing, wrinkled sourpuss Anton has married, and Mark Jacoby as the sycophant mayor. Susan Hilferty’s designs use costumes to artfully demonstrate the town’s gradual, greedy change of heart, a transformation that it’s hard not to find strangely transfixing.