all about Madonna

Desperately seeking Madonna. Hundreds of Italians have gathered in front of her hotel and rushed to Rome’s most chic street in hopes of getting a glimpse of the American pop star, who is to perform in a concert Sunday night at the Olympic stadium.
Fans started pouring in to the stadium since early afternoon, while some had camped out to get a spot right in front of the stage. Some 70,000 people were expected at the concert, which is the only Italian date of her “Confessions” tour.
A few hundred people also have gathered in front of Madonna’s hotel in downtown Rome since Saturday. A rumor that she was shopping on Via Condotti, Rome’s fashion street, sent hundreds of fans there, newspaper Il Messaggero and other dailies reported Sunday.
The concert has drawn criticism in Roman Catholic Italy, especially for Madonna’s plans to appear crucified on a mirrored cross while wearing a crown of thorns.
Religious leaders have condemned the mock crucifixion as an act of hostility toward the Roman Catholic Church and as a publicity stunt in bad taste.
But Madonna’s New York-based spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said in an e-mail that “the context of Madonna’s performance on the crucifix is not negative nor disrespectful toward the church.”
source : ap

Singles :
16 (07) Madonna – Get Together
Albums :
28 (33) Madonna – Confessions On A Dance Floor

5 Pictures – Madonna arrives to St. Regis hotel in Rome (August 05 2006) – are added to the gallery.

Russia’s Orthodox Church accused US superstar Madonna of exploiting Christian symbols for her own ends and called for a boycott of her first-ever concert in Moscow.
“The US singer Madonna exploits Christian symbols — the cross, rosary beads and the crucifix — and tries to equate human passions, including her own personal passions, with something sacred,” the spokesman for the patriarch of Moscow said.
“I don’t think that Orthodox believers should support this lady by going to her concert,” father Vsevolod Chaplin said on Echo of Moscow radio station.
She “needs spiritual help because she swings between Christianity and Kabbalah,” he said, referring to a branch of Jewish mysticism that the singer follows.
Madonna will perform in Russia for the first time on September 11 as part of her “Confessions” world tour. The concert will take place on a specially constructed stage on Sparrow Hills overlooking the city centre, close to Moscow State University.
The pop diva will arrive in the Russian capital with 57 trucks and 200 tonnes of equipment in tow, the organisers said. Tickets cost between 1,500 rubles (55 dollars, 45 euros) and a hefty 25,000 rubles (930 dollars, 730 euros).
Madonna kicked off the European leg of her world tour in the Welsh city of Cardiff on July 30 where she gyrated on a saddle floating above the stage and sang from a crucifix in a performance involving provocative dance routines.
She has often sparked outrage among religious leaders with raunchy video clips, notably when she kissed a black Christ in front of a burning cross in her 1989 hit “Like a Prayer”.
source : afp

10 Pictures – Madonna going to pilates class in London (August 04 2006) – are added to the gallery.

Liz Rosenberg, mouthpiece for the ecumenical hate object, tells us: “I think the Pope would enjoy the show and would applaud her performance. He has an open invitation to see for himself the eloquence and beauty that Madonna expresses for humanity while performing her poignant song ‘Live to Tell.’”
source : nydailynews

The Vatican accused Madonna of “blasphemy and profanity” yesterday – and even suggested that she should be excommunicated over a scene in her current Confessions Tour.
The so-called Queen of Pop brings her show to Rome on Sunday, and Roman Catholic leaders are furious at part of her performance in which she wears a crown of thorns and is apparently crucified.
Cardinal Ersilio Tonino, speaking with the Pope’s approval, said: “This is a blasphemous challenge to the faith and a profanation of the Cross. She should be excommunicated. To crucify herself “

Malawi, a Pennsylvania-sized country in southeast Africa, has four things in abundance: AIDS, malaria, drought and tobacco (its major crop). It also has a functioning democracy and little conflict. To date, therefore, it has not attracted much attention from the rest of the world. But that’s about to change. Malawi is about to be hit by a force that has thrown much more robust countries for a loop. Her name is Madonna.
And being Madonna, she’s not arriving in Malawi by halves. She has already committed to raising at least $3 million to fund programs particularly aimed at orphans there. Of Malawi’s population of 12 million, about a million are orphans. Ground has just been broken on an orphan care center, which aims to feed and educate as many as 1,000 children a day. She has also formed a partnership with developing-world economic guru Jeffrey Sachs on programs to improve the health, agriculture and economy of a village nearby. She’s financingto the tune of about $1 milliona documentary about the plight of children there. And she has met with Bill Clinton to see if they can work together to bring low-cost medicines to the area, as well as partnering with several aid organizations. This, mind you, is all before Madonna has ever even set foot in Africa. (She plans to go in October.)
“For the last few yearsnow that I have children and now that I have what I consider to be a better perspective on lifeI have felt responsible for the children of the world,” says Madonna, taking a break between London concert dates . “I’ve been doing bits and bobs about it and I suppose I was looking for a big, big project I could sink my teeth into.” The “better perspective” she attributes to Kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism. Her co-founder in the Raising Malawi project is Michael Berg, founder of the Kabbalah center in Los Angeles and one of the driving forces behind its growing popularity. And although it has no religious affiliation, the orphan-care centerwhich will be like a day camp for orphans, who often have relatives who will give them a place to sleep but cannot feed themwill offer programs based on Spirituality for Kids, Kabbalah’s children’s program. “One of the main precepts of Kabbalah is that we’re put on this earth to help people,” says Madonna. “And your job is to figure out how you can help, and what it is that you can do.”
Madonna is the latest in a line of major stars who have been trying to cast some of their limelight onto the situation in Africa. Sachs, who Madonna called after she read his book The End of Poverty, has already worked closely with Bono and Angelina Jolie, among others. He knows people are cynical about celebrities’ philanthropic efforts, but having met with Madonna (they had lunch and then he went to his first-ever Madonna concert), he’s not. “Of course there are no doubt people who on a fling say something, but that’s not what Madonna’s doing, it’s not what Angelina’s doing, it’s not what Bono’s doing,” he says. “In the very noisy and complicated world that we have, people that reach large numbers of people, like Madonna does, have an extraordinarily important role to play. When they’re devoting their time, their money, their name, a lot of effort, a lot of organization skill to all of this, it makes a huge difference. The cynics are just wrong. They don’t get it.”

Rome’s Catholic, Muslim and Jewish leaders have united to condemn pop star Madonna’s decision to stage a mock-crucifixion when she performs in the Italian capital on Sunday a stone’s throw away from Vatican City.
The lapsed-Catholic diva’s latest irreverent performance sees her wearing a fake crown of thorns and descending on a suspended, glittery cross as part of her worldwide “Confessions Tour.”
Having already been criticized in the United States, Catholics priests from across the Eternal City have gone one further saying the act “comes close to blasphemy.”
“It is disrespectful, in bad taste and provocative,” Father Manfredo Leone from Rome’s Santa Maria Liberatrice church said late on Wednesday about the star’s latest stage stunt.
“Being raised on a cross with a crown of thorns like a modern Christ is absurd. Doing it in the cradle of Christianity comes close to blasphemy.”
In an unusual show of religious solidarity, Muslim and Jewish leaders added their condemnation of the self-styled Queen of Pop, famous for peppering her concerts and videos with controversial religious and sexual imagery.
“I think her idea is in the worst taste and she’d do better to go home,” Mario Scialoja, head of Italy’s Muslim League said.
Riccardo Pacifici, spokesman and vice president of the Roman Jewish community, added Madonna should have pulled the routine considering where she was performing — a stadium a mile from the gates of Vatican City.
It is not the first time Madonna, who has a Catholic Italian-American father, has raised the ire of the Catholic Church.
Catholic leaders condemned as blasphemous her controversial 1989 video for hit song “Like a Prayer,” featuring burning crosses, statues crying blood and Madonna seducing a black Jesus.
In 2004, a Vatican group warned that her latest religious belief “Kabbalah,” a mystical form of Judaism, was a potential threat to the Roman Catholic faithful.
Madonna, 47, has refused to kowtow to Italy’s Catholic sensibilities, but in an interview published on Thursday she had nothing but praise for her Italian background.
She told Italy’s edition of Vanity Fair her “good Italian genes” were the reason for her staying in shape, famously allowing her to writhe in a leotard in a recent video.
source : reuters

Madonna gave former Blue star Duncan James a shock during her Confessions show in London on Tuesday – because she singled him out for not dancing.
James insists he was enjoying the show, but he found her dazzling onstage presence so hypnotic he just stood there gaping.
He says, “I couldn’t believe she was pointing at me! I was so embarrassed.
“I’d never seen Madonna live before and I was mesmerised by her amazing body and performance.
“It was exactly at that point, when she was dancing right in front of me, that I couldn’t do anything but stare because she looks so incredible. That’s why I wasn’t dancing.”
source : pr-inside