Circus, in Larible, clown of clowns, the Platinum Salieri for Lifetime Achievement

Gold was not enough for a champion of his caliber. He wanted more. He needed the platinum to celebrate 50 years of career always lived at the highest levels, passing from one triumph to another, between a smile, a gag and a dance step, in circuses and theaters of all the most important countries in the world . For this reason the International Salieri Circus Award, the only Festival that marries classical music with circus arts, has decided to pay homage, in this edition, on the occasion of its first half century spent on the stage, to what is unanimously considered the greatest clown of modern times, David Larible, awarding him the most prestigious award, the platinum Salieri for Lifetime Achievement. The artist will receive it in person on the final evening of the Festival, on 26 September 2022 at the Salieri Theater in Legnago (Verona). “It is a great honor for us to reward with the utmost recognition the amazing career of an artist of extraordinary qualities, who was able to bring the circus art of clowning to the highest levels, sublimating it to an authentic work of art, together with talent and to the Italian spirit that accompanies it “, declared director Antonio Giarola, artistic director of the Salieri Circus. When he told his father (Eugenio, trapeze artist and juggler) that he wanted to be a clown, he was sent to dance school. Because being a clown is the most difficult job. In fact, you have to know how to do everything. David Larible, very Italian despite his name (he was born in Verona in 1957), is a dancer, singer, musician and juggler. But above all he is considered by international critics, for many years now, the greatest clown in the world, ‘the clown of clowns’. Undisputed star in the USA for many years of the greatest circus in the world, the legendary Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, David Larible has performed in the major circuses and theaters in the world, and has won everything, including the coveted Golden Clown – extremely rare for clowns – at the Monte Carlo International Circus Festival, the most important in the world, in 1999 (before him only Rivel and Popov had succeeded). In the last twenty years, he has been one of the very few circus performers to bring a show of his own, of which he is the author, director and performer, to theaters around the world. In his art, original and very lively, he was inspired above all by legendary figures of comedy such as Chaplin, Grock and Rivel. Then over the years he has matured, continually perfecting it, a style of his own, which moves from very solid foundations of a classic mold, and which sometimes contaminates with the movements of street art, especially in games in which the public involves, as in numbers, now become a cult of ‘L’Opera’ and ‘L’Orchestra’. Here too the link with the Salieri Circus is no coincidence, given that Larible is inspired by classical music, opera and ballet, and that his most successful numbers refer precisely to bel canto, of which he is a passionate lover , as well as an excellent interpreter (he also recorded a record with Grock’s music). A circus performer for seven generations, Larible belongs to a family of jugglers, trapeze artists, clowns and dancers, who have family ties with numerous other European circus families (he is fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, English and German). He studied at the Verona Conservatory, and began his career at the Casartelli Circus, then Medrano, of the family of his mother Lucina, also an artist and for years her irreplaceable partner. Then, an uninterrupted succession of triumphs. Bouglione, Nock, Krone, Togni, Barnum, Roncalli, Knie, Cirque d’Hiver, Moscow State Circus, Nikulin, Ciniselli. Numerous awards won in his career. Much imitated (but never equaled) by comedians and clowns from all over the world, he has become a real cult character, to whom a line of gadgets has been dedicated in the USA, and which has inspired books, films and television broadcasts. Among these, the film ‘David Larible at Villa Grock’, signed by Roberto Bianchin and Silvio Giulietti, released in 2000 and successfully presented at the major international festivals in the sector, which compares the comedy of the two greatest clowns of the twentieth century and of the Two-thousand. Larible is often called by the University of Milan to give lectio magistralis to students of the Department of Performing Arts. The Mesoamerican University of Puebla awarded him the Doctorate Honoris Causa ‘for his triumphal international artistic trajectory’.