Madonna will go on tour from May for the first time in three years, starting in Israel before moving on to Europe, with legs in South America and Australia, where she has not performed for 20 years, tour promotion company Live Nation said on Tuesday.

The 2012 World Tour will be the first for the Grammy Award-winning 53-year-old Material Girl since her Sticky & Sweet Tour in 2008 and 2009 and will stop in more than 20 European and Middle Eastern cities including London, Edinburgh, Paris, Milan, Abu Dhabi and Berlin.

The tour starts on May 29 in Tel Aviv and then visits Abu Dhabi and Istanbul in early June before moving on to Europe. The European leg concludes on August 21st in Nice, France and the North American leg will end in Miami, with the date yet to be confirmed, the company said in a statement.

Dates for the South American and Australian legs and locations were not yet set and additional cities and venues are to be announced, they added.

The announcement came just days after Madonna's halftime performance at the Super Bowl on Feb 5, with a record 114 million people tuning in to watch the glitzy, Cleopatra-themed show, which was lauded by critics but resulted in an apology from television network NBC and the NFL for a rude gesture made by British hip hop star M.I.A. during the show.

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