After the enormous success of their musical adaptation of "Heidi", Stephen and Shaun were asked for a sequel based on the second part of Johanna Spyri's story (Heidi: How She Used What She Learned German: Heidi kann brauchen, was es gelernt hat). "HEIDI PART 2" begins where "HEIDI" ends. It intertwines the second "Heidi" novel with the later life of Johanna Spyri.

Not long before her death Johanna burned a lot of her papers. Was she trying to hide something? A story based around the idea of a late-blooming romance between Johanna and the writer Conrad Meyer was born. Darker in tone than “HEIDI”, the show explores the nature of love, loss, betrayal and jealousy. It can play as a sequel or stand completely alone.

Directed by Stefan Huber for TSW Musical AG, the musical was nominated for the prestigious Prix Walo award (the most important award in Switzerland for show business - the 'Swiss Oscar') for outstanding musical production. The Original Cast Recording is available from Sound of Music

As before, soaring melodies and sharp lyrics create a sweeping counterpoint and helped make the show a critical triumph and popular family success in Switzerland in 2007/08. The original live cast recording was released in 2007 with Sue Mathys as Johanna and Christoph Wettstein as Conrad.

 

Having enjoyed great success with the publication of “Heidi”, Johanna is reunited with her old friend Betsy Meyer, who encourages her to write a sequel, telling what happens when Klara visits Heidi in the mountains. When Johanna’s husband suddenly dies, Betsy whisks her old friend off to Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva, to write and recuperate. In Montreux, Johanna rekindles her relationship with Betsy’s brother, the poet Conrad Meyer. It develops from friendship into love, attracting vicious gossip from the leaders of polite society and provoking an increasingly jealous Betsy into an act of dreadful betrayal. In the Heidi story, Peter is jealous of his friend’s travels to Frankfurt. When Klara and the Sesemann family arrive to spend the summer, he thinks Heidi no longer needs him. Unable to help himself, he takes drastic action which threatens the very lives of Klara, Heidi and her ageing Grandfather. There is comedy galore, however, in the shallow Montreux beaux monde, in the now adolescent Peter’s attempt to come to terms with the whole issue of ‘girls’-and in the surprising romance of the Sesemann’s prime housekeeper, Fraulein Rottenmeier, and the village pastor.