  The equations of motion and boundary conditions for the fluctuations around a
classical open string, in a curved space-time with torsion, are considered in
compact and world-sheet covariant form. The rigidly rotating open strings in
Anti de Sitter space with and without torsion are investigated in detail. By
carefully analyzing the tangential fluctuations at the boundary, we show
explicitly that the physical fluctuations (which at the boundary are
combinations of normal and tangential fluctuations) are finite, even though the
world-sheet is singular there. The divergent 2-curvature thus seems less
dangerous than expected, in these cases. The general formalism can be
straightforwardly used also to study the (bosonic part of the) fluctuations
around the closed strings, recently considered in connection with the AdS/CFT
duality, on AdS_5 \times S^5 and AdS_3 \times S^3 \times T^4.
