For Ashley Vargas, 30, who worked with the animals and skated in the show, the loss of the elephants, some of which she had tended to from birth, was the beginning of the end. The elephants were retired to the circus’s sanctuary in Florida.

“To this day, the final performance with the elephants is the hardest performance I have ever had to go through,” she said. “I had to say goodbye to elephants I’d been with since they were born. They were part of my family.”

Beside her, Daniel Eguino clutched the handlebars of the blue motorcycle he rode inside a metal cage called the Globe of Death. Mr. Eguino, 29, the son of a contortionist mother and a father who was a trapeze artist, said he was heartbroken. “Not because they close the show that I work in — it’s that they close history,” he said.

The final show was shot through with moments in which performers broke the fourth wall to reflect on the end. As two tigers sat watching, their master, Alexander Lacey, turned to the crowd. “People are not really concerned with lots of wildlife until they can feel it and see it, enjoy it and love it as much as I do,” he said, urging the audience to support well-run circuses and zoos. “Sorry, boys, I don’t usually do that,” he said turning back to the patient tigers, awaiting their next cues. “I’ve confused you.”