MARÍA DEL CARMEN

“Sergio Vela’s staging is charged with tension and exudes atmosphere…
The mood projected is idiomatically compelling.”
Gus Smith, Sunday Independent

“A very effective production.”
Marino Rodríguez, La Vanguardia

MOTEZUMA

“…solemn movements and minimalist sets accentuated with impressive colorful lighting were the effective means of Sergio Vela’s staging.”
Peter Freudeberger, Aschaffenburger Zeitung

“First of all, Vela guided his protagonists through the pure formalistic principles of opera seria, and he oriented the action with precise gestures full of meaning and strength.”
Christiane Franke, Die Welt

“…a well-deserved applause… The remarkable success of this production owes much to stage director and designer Sergio Vela.”
Agnes Schönberger, Frankfurter Allgemeine

DAS RHEINGOLD

“Sergio Vela shows a clear preference for abstraction and for rigorous understanding of the dramatic meaning… He has delved into the paradigm of Greek tragedy, and explores the variety of significance and meaning of ever-lasting myths and symbols…”
Ricardo Pohlenz, Reforma

“Sergio Vela deserves credit as the main impulse of the most ambitious project in our opera history.”
Lázaro Azar, Reforma

“The spell of this staging worked wonders… Sergio Vela has made extensive use of classical theatre, but his reading is clearly contemporary, and the powerful truth of the myth shined throughout the evening.”
Ángel Vargas, La Jornada

“Vela and his workshop is the most talented team in our operatic realm…”
José Noé Mercado, Revista Pro Ópera

COSÌ FAN TUTTE

“Sergio Vela conceived a sober, theatrical and effective staging. There were indeed few elements, but many clear ideas.”
Álvaro Guibert, La Razón

“The spirit of comedy was built with deep insight, and the direction of the actors was superb… A much-deserved loud applause crowned the success of the production.”
Julián Carrillo, Mundo clásico

“A stark staging that emphasized the heavy meaning of the plot…”
Cosme Mariña, La Nueva España

EL CIMARRÓN

“Sergio Vela built a rigorous staging… His lighting design was outstanding… He is without doubt the most respected of our lyrical stage directors.”
Lázaro Azar, Reforma

“Vela’s sober and abstract style is once more evident and effective in this intimate staging.”
Sergio Raúl López, Reforma

MACBETH

“The stage shined with Sergio Vela’s solid, vigorous and personal style… The dramatic result linked vigil and dream… An unforgettable staging that gathered all the arts harmoniously; pure and robust poetry.”
Pablo Espinosa, La Jornada

“Vela has built his own artistic language, and his expressive means are always consistent.”
Juan Arturo Brennan, La Jornada

“In his amazing staging, Sergio Vela delved into the drama, and
single-handedly he made its deep meaning shine.”
Fernando Díez de Urdanivia, El Universal

SIEMPRE ES HOY

“Time was the leitmotiv in this deeply moving mixture of philosophy, poetry and music… Juan Ibáñez’s last will worked wonders in Sergio Vela’s hands.”
Luis Meza, A.M.

“A dreamlike atmosphere, a subtle offering, a homage to the workshop of imagination.”
Mónica Mateos, La Jornada

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

“Sergio Vela is a young master of the operatic stage... Fortunately, he has rejected the traditional images of 18th Century fantasy... Instead, he has conceived a world of geometrical order and has modified Schikaneder’s dialogues with a new narration. This was a wonderful formal universe sprung from the director’s imagination; it is the triumph of formality above all. Vela and his team have their own perspective, their own code of expression, and they are giving opera a contemporary meaning...”
Fernando de Ita, Reforma

“Another staging by Sergio Vela has seduced me completely. His Magic Flute is so rich in symbolism, that there is always much to enjoy. We faced a true Gesamtkunstwerk, in which everything has been carefully devised... Vela’s choice of a narrator was as clever as the rest of the cultural references that were shown on stage.”
Lázaro Azar, Reforma

“A daring staging by Sergio Vela... With one sure blow, the new millenium reached our opera stage.”
Colombia Moya, La Jornada

“With this new staging, Sergio Vela has consolidated himself as the great master of operatic direction... The fortunate gathering of diverse sources, the depth of meaning and lightness of touch alike, the precision of acting movements and gesture, and his monumental adventurous spirit made of this Magic Flute an overwhelming cultural event... Vela’s achievements are truly immense.”
Pablo Espinosa, La Jornada

“Vela undertook this long-awaited enterprise with his usual talent and ability. His uncommon passion makes him explore new paths, no matter how risky, and he has once more succeded: this Magic Flute has been as a prophetic revelation, almost a hallucination... Vela’s work shined in every detail.”
Mario Saavedra, Siempre!

“With his scenic creativity, Sergio Vela has become, needless to say, a vital and avant-garde force in the operatic realm... A single word could very well define this Magic Flute: extraordinary.”
Salvador Perches, unomásuno

“Young yet expert, Sergio Vela has led this new Magic Flute in which the dramatic meaning of opera has been extremely well presented.”
Thelma Gómez Durán, etcétera

THE VISITORS

“A powerful and convincing staging... A minimalist proposal which draws our attention to the ‘iniciatic’ process of the characters. Sergio Vela was the driving force of this project.”
José Wolffer, Reforma

“Sergio Vela’s proposal trascended temporality... His was a first-rate staging.”
Santiago Martín Bermúdez, Scherzo / ABC

“In his concise yet abstract space, Vela’s staging offered dynamism and changing geometrics; a well-thought-out choice for emphasizing the director’s strong theatrical concept.”
Juan Arturo Brennan, La Jornada

“The event of the year... Sergio Vela gave living breath to the stage with his imaginative, efficient and precise staging. He has never given up his characteristic and sober style, but he is capable of reaching the theatrical pulse, and he built up a labyrinth of multiple mirages, clear though intriguing as well.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Reforma

“My father would have been very proud of this extraordinary staging.”
Ana Chávez (daughter of the composer)

IDOMENEO, RE DI CRETA

“Sergio Vela’s wisdom and talent were once more evident... He has a rare and penetrating insight. His knowledge and imagination allow him to delve into the psychology of the characters, showing different perspectives at the same time.”
Mario Saavedra, Siempre!

“The best mise-en-scène of the year... With firm hand and creative fantasy, this was a paradigm of a staging.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Proceso

“Vela’s previous achievements have been aknowledged before. Now, he goes even further, with his usual austerity, creating remarkable atmospheres. In his hands, Idomeneo was a living work of art; contemporary theatre.”
José Antonio Fernández, El Nacional

“Beauty with clockwork precision, the stage breathing with intensity... Success has a precise name here: Vela, with this unforgettable staging.”
Pablo Espinosa, La Jornada

“Vela has the virtue of being polemic. With exquisite taste, he well renews the classical stage with his reading, surprising the audience and enlightening the score.”
Juan Carlos Garda, Reforma

TURANDOT

“Well-deserved applause greeted the director... The staging created an atmosphere of old wisdom. The young Sergio Vela was able to underline the various elements of the score: sentimentality, comedy, heroism and exotica. In Vela’s staging, the chorus was a single, gigantic, ambiguous character, reacting emotionally to the development of the plot.”
A. Z. Il tempo, Roma

“Vela had promised a tragic Turandot, and he kept his word. His staging was convincing, and was received with enthusiastic acclaim. Gone were the fairy-tale colors; Turandot was more human than ever before.”
Lisa Domenici, Il Tirreno

“The task was to draw our attention to the deepest impulses of the characters and to their conflicts, thus becoming statuesque symbols surrounded by an ancient, unchangeable ritual. This was the wise choice of Sergio Vela’s direction.”
Giovanni Rossi, La Nazione

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

“Clearly enough, the director knows each word of the libretto and each bar of the score. It seems that Vela followed the leitmotif-structure of the work, translating it into specific movements, gestures and colors... Sergio Vela is a wonderful stage director.”
José Rafael Calva Pratt, unomásuno

“An impeccable, first-rate staging. Austere yet always clear, minimal yet much expressive, clockwork-like, Sergio Vela’s direction opened once more the gates of this meaningful work through eloquent symbolism and abstraction. The medieval myth was renewed without need of any superficial updating of the action.”
Pablo Espinosa, La Jornada

“I give my applause to Sergio Vela. His imagination, his vast literary, musical and historical knowledge, his professional skills and his good taste were evident in his staging... A bare stage, plentiful of geometrical shapes and changing colors... a great technical task.”
Enésimo Nemo, El Nacional

“A praiseworthy production, done with loving care, intensity and brilliance by Sergio Vela... Shining shapes, light and space interacting with masterly kinetic transformations, all this animated with certainity and imagination. One realises the director’s deep knowledge of the stage as a fertile and stimulating territory.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Proceso

“With his remarkable talent, Sergio Vela offered a modern production, full of dramatic meaning... His lighting design was pure poetry, and became an additional character of this opera.”
Mario Saavedra, Siempre!

“The production was noteworthy for its economy and real sense of Wagnerian style: modern, functional and full of suggestive detail.”
Octavio Roca, San Francisco Chronicle

SALOME

“Sergio Vela conception was far from any conventional staging. His direction was close to ritual and he solved this task most successfully. Vela’s
stage-work has an enormous degree of precision.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Proceso

“Desire, obsession and isolation were at the heart of director Sergio Vela’s staging of Virginia Opera’s Salome... In an opera in which no one listens to anyone else, Vela’s thought-provoking staging spoke to the audience.”
Jeffrey C. Smith, Opera Monthly

“The star of Salome (Richard Strauss) never appears onstage. The co-star (director Sergio Vela) isn’t on stage, either. Vela’s staging was done in the abstract-expressionist style that Wieland Wagner devised.”
Clarke Bustard, The Richmond Times

“Making a visually stunning, thought-provoking contribution was stage director Sergio Vela [who] created a starkly abstract look similar to contemporary German theater design.”
David Nicholson, Daily Press

“Sergio Vela is interested on the eloquence of opera as a living theatrical phenomenon. He conceived Salome as a drama of non-communication. In this most successful production, the director himself served as a remarkable lighting designer.”
Gerardo Kleinburg, Viceversa

“It was Mister Vela’s feeling that, in an opera in which characters never really speak to or relate to each other, a similar impression of allienation must be conveyed on stage to underscore this lack of communication. We felt that the unusual production conveyed perfectly what he wished to suggest and that it went perfectly with Strauss’ music and Wilde’s play... It was not meant to be a realistic production; it was unorthodox and symbolic... The lighting was dramatic and other-worldly. Not for one moment did this talented director mean for us to take this staging at face value. What he was showing us was the desperate, passionate thinking of the characters... I think Sergio Vela is a brilliant and daring director.”
Hope Mihalap, WHRO-FM, Norfolk

DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER

“Another triumph for Sergio Vela, a director with great theatrical, literary and historic knowledge, and with notorious musical skills. What he does, he is doing better each time.”
Enésimo Nemo, El Nacional

“Sergio Vela is ascending. He knows and loves each opera he directs. The staging of this opera was undoubtedly an essential component of the successful evening.”
Xavier A. Torresarpi, El Economista

“This was a great achievement for Sergio Vela, a director who knows the score as deeply as a conductor.”
Pablo Martínez Lozada, unomásuno

“A most imaginative director. In his staging, there were moments of great beauty and drama... With poetic inventiveness, he reached an unconventional expression.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Proceso

“...a sober and intelligent staging by Sergio Vela, who is now confirmed as the most talented and sensitive director in Mexico today.”
Anne Delécole, Revista Pro Opera

LA CLEMENZA DI TITO

“An almost static staging, wonderfully directed, in which the characters wandered in slow motion, suspending time with synthetic expressiveness. Towards the end, a collective hypnosis was almost reached.”
Anne Delécole, Viceversa

“Sergio Vela’s direction was done with firm hand and wisdom.”
Xavier A.Torresarpi, El Economista

“Sergio Vela’s talent was shown in his solid and imaginative direction. He made a clever use of technical devices, yet most important was the dramatic treatment of the characters. The director delved into the psychology of the Roman emperor, a superior kind of humanity, omniscient, ever-present. Without a doubt, this production was the star of the Festival.”
Enésimo Nemo, El Nacional

“...a splendid production, remarkably directed by Sergio Vela, who staged it with clarity and opulence. He achieved harmonic elegance with subtle detail... Here are the best production and best director of the year.”
José Antonio Alcaraz, Proceso

FAUST

“Full of detail and symbolism, the daring direction of this Faust shined with a logic of its own, that ultimately liberated the action. This production marks a new path for operatic staging in Mexico.”
Gerardo Kleinburg, unomásuno

“A staging that achieved an amazing freshness and agility. Through simplicity, this work arrived at its tragic dimensions with great visual expression.”
Rosendo Avellano Montalbo, La Jornada Semanal

“The purpose was to fill emptiness with life; a different way to tell the story, thus breaking conventional style.”
Estela Leñero, unomásuno