During the great Les Mis craze of oh, sometime in the late 90's, I went and caught a production in Dallas with my family. Everyone before and since that I've talked to claims that seeing this show is some kind of life affirming religious experience.
My entire family (including my mom, a bonafide theater nut) thought it was excruciating. Just awful. We couldn't take it any more, so when intermission came, we bounced.
To this day I can't figure out what happened. Since then I've listened to the soundtrack, and there are some damn good songs on there. None of which I recognize from the Les Mis production I saw. Kind of bizarre.