I saw it several times between London and NY and enjoyed the entire show. One of my favorite parts is "You Can Get Away With Anything."
The show was not a critical success, but it wasn't a disaster either. Unfortunately, a huge lack of publicity and illnesses among the cast played a big part in its early closing.
As for the cast recording, it's well worth getting, for all that it has Michael Crawford instead of Michael Ball singing the role of Fosco.
I didn't get a chance to see the show, but I think the recording is quite interesting and I've found "If I Could Only Dream This World Away" to be one of the more beautiful songs I've heard in quite a while.
I'm pretty sure "Lammastide" is a traditional song and that Webber didn't actually write it, but that was a fun number none-the-less. My favorite parts of the score were "You See I Am No Ghost" and "Ever More Without You". I would love to see a scaled down tour version. I don't really see the need for all those projections. The story worked fine on its own.
What I think went wrong was the fact that they relied so much on this "new, innovative use of projections" instead of the story and characters. It seems like Webber & Co. thought they could strike cold if they had some big ticket prop (a la the chandalier), but it didnt work and people didn't like the projections. But in one of the Playbill articles it said that Webber was going to reinvent the show and put it back on Broadway/London in a few years. So maybe we haven't seen the last of it.
I had the privelage of seeing the show in London and then again on Broadway. I thought the London production was pretty stellar.
Crawford was a delight, and Friedman was stunning.
However, much like the transfer of Mary Poppins, when Woman in White came to Broadway from London, they took a lot of the dark and, well, British elements out of the show, replacing them with more sets and brighter lights, which I felt ruined the overall feel.
They also cut one of Marian's songs, If Not For Me For Her, which was one of the my favs from London, and one of Webbers more simple and beautiful songs.
"If I Could Only Dream This World Away" and "All for Laura" are two stunning songs and I kinda like the small title song bits as well! All in all maybe not Lloyd Webbers best, but I really enjoyed it the three times I saw it!