Madonna has kicked off her world tour with a controversial stunt that saw her hanging from a giant cross wearing a crown of thorns.
The 47-year-old star, who provoked the wrath of the Vatican in 1989 with her video for Like A Prayer, staged the mock crucifixion as she delivered the ballad Live To Tell.
At the same time images of children suffering under third-world poverty flashed across video screens.
The show in Los Angeles last night also featured a montage juxtaposing shots of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush with footage of Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
During one song, I Love New York, Madonna changed the lyrics to insult Mr Bush with a reference to oral sex.
The opening date of the Confessions world tour, her first in two years, started 50 minutes late with the singer popping out of a giant mirror ball that was lowered from the ceiling.
Dressed in raunchy dominatrix-style riding gear and whip she writhed her way through the song Future Lovers, while in the background video clips showed people falling off horses just as she did last year.
Over the course of the next two hours which included seven costume changes – she got through most of the songs from her new album, Confessions On A Dance Floor, and revived a few old favourites, including Like A Virgin, Ray Of Light and Lucky Star.
The audience included Madonna’s Kabbalah guru Rabbi Yehuda Berg, and socialite Nicole Richie.
A picket of the venue in the suburb of Inglewood, by stagehands involved in an industrial dispute, failed to disrupt the concert.
The tour hits the UK in July, starting in Cardiff.
Madonna was condemned by the Vatican in 1989 for the way the video of Like A Prayer linked eroticism and religion.
- Source ic Wales
