Evita is as musically ambitious as it gets, and Lloyd Webber's music has never been so consistantly good. Rice's lyrics are pretty good too.
But Evita has a fundamental, nearly unfixable problem that haunts every production including the film that by and large worked for me.
When the show is over, we don't know anything more about Eva and Juan Peron than we did when the show starts. Nothing has been revealed. It seems to be a pageant, a diorama, and not a story.
"If my life weren't funny, it would just be true. And that would be unacceptable."
--Carrie Fisher