RESURRECTION

Festival Hill Managing Director, Richard Royall, dies and lives to tell about it

But, despite his phenomenal accomplishments as an artist, history may remember James Dick most fondly as the visionary founder of the Festival-Institute at Round Top.

A number of brilliant people stand in the shadow of this great man. People who, if they had not chosen to spend their lives supporting Mr. Dick and his project, would have no doubt gained a great measure of success on their own.

Richard Royall is such a man. The Managing Director of the Festival-Institute has been with James Dick since the beginning. Diminutive in stature, Mr. Royall is a man of great intellect and courage, who has spent his adult life bringing into being the vision that he and Mr. Dick share.

In the fall of 1997, that partnership and Mr. Royall's very life almost came to an end. His right carotid artery burst. He had a massive stroke. At one point, his heart stopped and he had to be resuscitated. He was in the hospital for almost three months before his physicians would allow him to come home to Round Top.

For a considerable time, after it became clear that he would survive, there were grave questions about the damage done to his brain. The people who cared about him lived in fear that their friend was forever changed.

You will discover, upon reading this interview, that Mr. Royall still has a brilliant mind. What you will also find is that he was changed by his experience...irrevocably, irretrievably changed.

James Dick and Richard Royall met early in their careers. Mr. Royall graduated from Princeton University and then went to the University of Texas, where he added a B.L. to the B.A. he earned at Princeton. Among other subjects, he had an interest in Soviet Studies. James Dick had just come back to Austin from Moscow after winning the Tchaikovsky competition. They had musician friends in common. Richard Royall sought out the young pianist because of their common interest in Russia. The rest, as they say, is history.

You have spent the better part of your life with Jimmy Dick creating the Festival-Institute at Round Top. It's a brilliant achievement. Was it clear from the beginning that it would be your life's work?

I just believe some things are written. Sometimes you just know it. Sometimes things are just meant for you.

What is it like working with a visionary like James Dick?

Wonderful. It's like your whole life is a painting. The concepts are so strongly held. It's sketched and then it all comes to life. It's uncovered as though it already existed.

Whether you build a bridge or a concert hall in a pasture or a chapel or a fountain...or other things that you have yet to see, it will happen. You can watch them, like spring time, start happening. Everything is brown, then all of a sudden...leaves and trees. It's a miracle.

One thing about Jimmy that is very important to his character, is that Christian Science had a lot of influence in his life. He was performing in a Christian Science church as a boy.

When the rest of us were playing with tinkertoys and reading our comic books, he was already being carefully taught to believe that ideas are real. They have real effect. So what you think and how you think is very important. It's never a casual matter.

So, the visions that humans see are just as real as any city. A world of concepts can be like scripture. Concept precedes reality. Concept IS reality.

Since the arts are so conceptual, they are so important...sort of like a sacred vessel.

Not long ago, you almost died when an artery burst in your brain. It could have been the end of your days. If that had happened, would you have been satisfied with the life you had led?

No. I had always been taught to never be satisfied. That was the deal Faust made with Mephistopheles.

Whenever he became satisfied, only then could Mephistopheles have him. When Mephistopheles came back to fetch him, the angels took Faust up to heaven telling the devil that anyone who aspires is saved and can never be lost. So, I will never be satisfied.

There does come a point where reality has to intrude itself, but, being satisfied with the spiritual dimension of things...no...then I would be lost.

How would you describe yourself before your brush with death?

Too confident...I knew where everything was and where everybody was. I thought I had the world wrapped up in a package. I find people operate like that...because it lets us get through a day. We'll go here. We'll go there. We'll contact this person in such a way and that person in another way. It's a bit superstitious. It's a ritual that pigeons or whatever would go through.

At the end of the day you turn out the lights and go to sleep and you think. "Everything is in its place. Everything is fine. You are going to wake up and it'll be another day."

That's not necessarily the case.

In a strange sort of way, it was kind of a wake up call. Before, I had a pretty short fuse. It didn't take much to set me off. I remember back, some of the things I did before...I don't recognize myself..at all. I couldn't do those things now. I wouldn't.

How would you say you have changed after your experience?

I'm very glad to be here. I tell all my friends "Don't die if you can possibly help it. I couldn't see a whole lot to it...being ‘over there.'" I've irritated a number of people who have had "near death" experiences that like to talk about the light and the sounds and the brilliant colors.

I didn't find that. I found there was not a lot going on. It's been suggested that I didn't go to heaven.

(Laughter) There's no place to go. No mall. No parties. Best I could tell it was just grey and cold. I know now why that was true. When my heart stopped, they had to pound on me to get it going. That's not exactly a pleasant experience.

I've talked to others who said they were in a white fog and each little particle in the fog was a point of light and there was wonderful harmony and peace.

I've had better dreams. I dreamed about Round Top before I came here...the scenery, the landscape, the music. I still would maintain...don't die if you can help it. Don't give up.

Another thing that was interesting while I was out, was they were giving me such strong medicine, I was having hallucinations. I understand now how fragile one’s grip on reality can be, because those hallucinations can be so fantastically real...

I was seeing everybody in that hospital. The TV set was talking to me. I would have conversations with all the people on the TV screen. They were saying "Hello Richard." I thought it was a trick of the hospital, trying to make me feel better. I was out of it. Famous Amos came to see me in the hospital. He was one of my nurses.

So, when I hear about old people getting a little "blurred," I know what they are going through. I know how easy it is. We're all just a few pills away from it.

Has your philosophy of life changed?

I value people and everything much more than I did. I used to be rather heartless... I used to hate ants in my sink. If I saw yellow jackets building a nest in the shutter, I'd go out and zap those creatures. Now I like their company. I like to watch the brave little creatures, particularly ants, trying to respond to light and warmth. It's very touching. I feel very affectionate towards them. I won't kill them unless I absolutely have to.

Would you describe yourself as a religious person.

Yes, I would. Not in an organized religion way. I think everyone here takes religion very seriously. Not in the sense that we go to communion or that sort. But we just feel a presence...and always show respect. I like the idea of an unseen presence. I show respect. If I go in a graveyard, I don't walk across the graves. I'm very careful about that. If I go to the airport in Austin, I don't walk across the seal of Austin.

Everything needs to be respected, even the ants, the weeds coming up in the cracks of the brick terrace. We should respect all of it.

I'm a much nicer person since I died.

Are you lucky that you almost died.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. I want to have respect for death too...not be arrogant in the face of the grim reaper. I always think about it whenever I'm in a family gathering, with friends, during Christmas carols or Thanksgiving...whatever.

I'll give you the Round Top toast that's been concocted since I came back from the hospital...

Sounds like a way to complicate your life, doesn't it?

People's feelings are like an extension of themselves. Even a stray cat...you have to be careful of its feelings. They know if you respect them or not...and people do too. They know when you are looking at them and respecting them and their feelings.

Do you believe in an afterlife?

I don't believe anyone is lost. It's a rather sobering thought that all your relations are around you...and can see how you turned out after all their work! I don't dwell on that thought too much. (laughter)

Don't you feel that way? You've had good friends and relations pass away and they’re just never really gone. If I ever love someone, I never give them up. It's sort of a ritual with me. They're not really gone. No one will ever be able to convince me that they are gone...because I have the attitude that they won't be gone. I never back down.

Creation is love...and so is healing. The only problem that poses for most people, is that love causes vulnerability. If you are not willing to be vulnerable, you might as well forget any creative endeavor.

What are the ideas behind the architecture of the Festival-Institute?

There's a bit of everyone's experience in everything you see. What you see is a reference to something that has happened or is going to happen. You'll see a reference to London and a reference to Heidelberg and a reference to Princeton. Some are rather shameless references, but they are there.

Wherever Jimmy goes, if he sees something he likes, it's liable to reappear somewhere, somehow. I'll give you one which you'll have to think about. You'll laugh when you see it happen. He likes Fort Lauderdale. It's going to happen. (Laughter) Don't worry, it's not a giant wave machine.

Jimmy Dick can take anything and transform it. He's the original Rumpelstiltskin. He can take straw and spin it into gold...

He knows the origins of everything, where the ideas and designs came from, the materials... the furnishings in this very room, where they came from.

Most everything around Festival Hill, the things we like best, were things that were considered a joke or junk. Some became valuable icons but they weren't that at the time we found them. They became that because of their context.

It's a bit like a symphony. As it all comes together, then it can become profound.

What would the Festival-Institute be without you?

It would have been a lot more bruised up. Every project needs a yard dog. If I had to, I would go out there toe to toe, eye to eye...and not back down.

My temperament is such that whatever I start on will be my life's work. I never back away from what I start. You just don't stop...even if you have a stroke, you don't stop.

Where on campus do we see the results of your influence?

The statue base for St. Joseph. It's next to a hickory nut tree.

It has taken a phenomenal amount of work to bring the Festival-Institute to the place it is today. What keeps you going?

Love. I never, ever get tired. Everybody else can be dead on their faces on the floor and I'm not tired. I'm ready to get on with it.

What good are goals?

I love to reach them. I always did.

Were you relentless before you met Jimmy.

Yes.

So you both were relentless before you met?

Yes! (laughter) Relentless is the only way to be. That's what my name means...determined.

If you had died a year ago, what would you have missed.

This summer...such a great season of music.

I wouldn't have been able to cheer my mother up after my father died and her brother died. I wouldn't have been able to tell my step-father goodbye...or my uncle. I wouldn't have had the chance to say "goodbye" to lots of people.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a near-death experience. They really did die. I would have hated to have not been able to have seen them.

I am convinced I will see the again. I don't have a chemical trace of a doubt about that.

I would have missed two New Year's Eve Parties. That's what got me out of the hospital. I wouldn't shut up so they had to let me out.

What do you plan to do with the rest of your life?

Finish this place. It will be fun because the world and Round Top...certainly Texas, will be amazed.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Yes. Love heals.

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