The Monaco royals were out in force last night to launch the 2018 Monte Carlo International Circus Festival.
Performers put on a show-stopping display for their VIP guests at the annual event with jugglers, clowns, dancers, horseback riders and even an elephant taking to the ring.
Princess Stéphanie and her brother Albert II, the children of the late Grace Kelly, were joined by Stéphanie’s children Pauline and Louis Ducruet for the official opening ceremony on Thursday evening.
The much-anticipated annual circus has become something of an institution in the principality and has been running since 1974, with this year’s event due to run from January 18 until January 28.
The 42nd event is being held at the Chapiteau de l’Espace Fontvieille (Chapiteau of Monaco), an open-air amusement park by the sea, with tickets costing up to $190 (£137).
Roll up, roll up! Monaco’s royals L-R Pauline Ducruet, her mother Princess Stéphanie, Prince Albert II, Louis Ducruet and his partner Marie are given a royal welcome as they launch the 42th Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival in Monaco
In keeping with the evening’s vibrant theme, the women of the House of Grimaldi pulled out all the stops with a series of colourful ensembles, with 23-year-old Pauline donning a metallic silver trouser suit.
This year also marks 250 years since equestrian Philip Astley ‘invented’ modern circus as we know it with a performance near London’s Westminster Bridge involving jugglers, dogs, monkeys and music before taking the spectacle to France for the court of Louis XVI.
And to celebrate the milestone anniversary, Princess Stéphanie invited world-famous double-act Equestrian Pas de Deux, featuring Jozsef Richter Junior and his young wife Merrylu, to the ring.
The circus’s Organising Committee has also invited Hungarian high-wire performers Simet Trio to show off their incredible ‘astronauts’ balancing act on a gigantic moving arc this year – dubbed a ‘gravity-defying aerial act’ by the board.
According to tradition, an international jury under the presidency of HSH Princess Stephanie will honour the best acts of the Festival with the famous Golden, Silver and Bronze Clowns awards on the circus’s closing night.
Stéphanie, who is President of the extraordinary show, helps to oversee the Circus Festival and is involved in everything from choosing the acts to the choreography.
World-famous double-act Equestrian Pas de Deux, featuring acrobats Jozsef and Merrylu Richter, are joined by a charging elephant as they perform during the opening ceremony on Thursday night
Her father Prince Ranier was the brains behind the first festival, which now as then, specialises in traditional circus acts from clowns to acrobats.
Stéphanie, who is is tenth in line to the throne, is an enthusiastic supporter of the glittering event and first attended when she was just nine and has been a dedicated attendee ever since.
The royal famously eloped with an elephant trainer in 2001, along with her three children, before returning to Monaco.
But the relationship came to an abrupt end and, two years later, she married a circus acrobat – a relationship which also ultimately ended in divorce.
Controversy surrounded Camille’s birth in 1998 as Stephanie neglected to name a father on her birth certificate.
As such, Camille is not included in the line to the Monegasque throne, unlike her brother Louis Robert and her sister Pauline Grace.