What Madonna Knows

We like our female icons, as they age, to go quietly—to tiptoe backwards into semi-reclusion, away from our relentless curiosity and our unforgiving gaze. Tina Turner managed this arguably better than anyone else, holed up for the last decade of her life in a gated Swiss château with an adoring husband and a consulting role on the hit musical about her life, watching a younger performer step nimbly into her gold tassels. Joni Mitchell retreated to her Los Angeles and British Columbia properties for so long that when she reappeared for a full set at the Newport Folk Festival last year, it was as though God herself was suddenly present, ensconced in a gilded armchair, her voice still so sonorous that practically every single person onstage with her wept.