 |
| Madonna |
Regardless of all the uproar she has caused with her latest tour, "Confessions", Madonna is determined to make her debut in Russia tonight, ending the European tour.
The 48-year-old pop star has offended many Christian groups all over Europe by including a mock crucifixion of her, wearing a crown of thorns, in her stage performance.
Madonna is scheduled to perform tonight, in front of a approximately 50,000 fans at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium.
Members of the several peaceful protests which burst in Moscow in the last couple of weeks, are putting pressure on people to boycott the concert set to take place tonight.
"This lady has been glorifying human passions with the help of religious symbols for years crosses, statues and beads. Now she thinks it is time for her to crucify herself in public. It means the singer is in need of spiritual help," a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, was quoted as saying by the Pravda news Web site.
"The use of the cross is not merely an advertising stunt, though this is indisputably one of her motives. It is an indication of a person's spiritual problems. Of course, it would be more than strange for an Orthodox person to give the spiritual problems of this singer greater publicity by attending her concerts."
Russia's Orthodox Church is also urging Madonna to quit her performance involving the crucifixion symbols.
"We are not against Madonna. We're against her blasphemous acts during the concert," Father Sergei Zvonoryov, a member of the Moscow patriarchy press department, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
"Crucifixion, cross, diadem of thorns on her head. All this is a parody on the crucifixion of Christ. She must respect the view of the country and society, where she is going to perform," he said.
Madonna has defended the scene, as part of an appeal to the audience to donate to AIDS charities, shortly after she began her tour in May, saying, "I don't think Jesus would be mad at me and the message I'm trying to send."
In addition to all the pressure on the singer's shoulders, another handful of radical Orthodox groups have an aggressive attitude towards her actions and say they will protest outside the venue.
"We can't get the show banned but we can ask people to pray and protest against her presence here," said a spokesman for two such groups, the Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers and the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods. "She wants to hurt our religious feelings," he added.
Police promised to take high security measures in order to keep everything under control and avoid trouble, including airport-style metal detectors and bag inspections by providing over 7,000 security guards.
"About 3,500 policemen, including 400 Omon fighters [riot specialists], as well as police with dogs, bomb technicians and soldiers from the Dzerhinsky special task division, will be ensuring security," General Vyacheslav Kozlov, chief of Moscow's public security police, told Interfax news service.
Initially, the concert was supposed to be held yesterday, September 11, in a small venue but the location changed out of safety means, and the concert date postponed in order to avoid the anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
"We decided that to hold the concert on that day [Sept. 11] would have been unethical," Vladimir Kiselyov, general director of concert co-organizer GFUP Kreml, said.
Madonna's fans are supporting her move, eager to see her performance.
"We wanted this for so long," Rustan A. Stydalov, told The Times. "The last few weeks have been so nerve-racking."
"It is high time everybody understands that we are a free people, and we have a right to welcome anyone we want--and what's more, that every artist has a right to self-expression and that no religious or political dogmas should stand in the way here anymore," said Ivan Stolyarenko, 20, a student who paid $375 for a ticket.
"If you look at the people who stand in lines to buy tickets for her show you may notice that a big majority of them are in their 30s and 40s," said Boris Lifanovsky, a commentator for Musical Instruments, a quarterly journal. "This is our first generation of free-thinking, open-minded and independent people. It is a really futile and counterproductive effort that I am absolutely sure will never stop people who want to see Madonna."
