Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World
World Premiere
Fort Worth Opera
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“All of these elements are drawn together by the inspired stage direction of Octavio Cardenas..."
- Gregory Sullivan Isaacs, Theaterjones
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"Director Octavio Cardenas directed a fun, colorful, and energetic play to bring the family to."
 - John Garcia, The Column Online

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Madama Butterfly
Opera Santa Barbara
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“...one of the most beautifully designed and lit, simply yet dramatically staged, superbly acted and brilliantly sung productions of Puccini’s masterpiece in this viewer’s and likely most of the audience’s memory. Stage Director Octavio Cardenas moved his characters about the three-tiered set and its superbly efficient pairs of giant scene-changing shoji screens with the mastery of a miniaturist.”
- Daniel Kepl, Voices Santa Barbara

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Dead Man Walking
Opera Delaware
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"Sagely directed by Octavio Cardenas."
- David Shengold, Opera News

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La bohème
Des Moines Metro Opera

"Director Octavio Cardenas has brought an abundance of imaginative stage business to bear, all the while he skillfully accommodates the time honored performance traditions of the signature moments."
- James Sohre, Opera Today

​"This year’s specialties were Octavio Cardenas’ winning production of La bohème (the nationally renowned director’s DMMO mainstage debut)... Cardenas, a frequent DMMO collaborator, showed special aplomb in the intimate moments: One felt genuine chemistry not just between the two lovers, Rodolfo (Joshua Guerrero) and Mimì (Julie Adams), but also at moments in which the poverty-stricken Parisians commiserated over small things."
- Paul Horsley, The Independent (Kansas City)

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La rondine
Minnesota Opera
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“After attending Saturday’s first performance, I can add you may never experience a more skillfully crafted interpretation of the opera than this. Boasting strong singing throughout the cast and an exquisitely executed concept and design, this is grand opera done grandly, full of spectacle, sweet to the ears, and overflowing with emotion... Minnesota Opera’s production filled me with admiration for how thoroughly director Octavio Cardenas and his creative team thought through what they wanted to do with this work. They’ve constructed it as the wistful yet rueful reminiscences of its central character, a “kept woman” who considers abandoning a life of luxury in favor of love and poverty. Each act is framed by her wandering through a black-and-white palette that bursts into color as her memories come to life.” 
- Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities Pioneer Press

"...entrancing staging by stage director Octavio Cardenas that creates balanced, assemblages and
fluid movement among the actors, and beautiful design work... Cardenas is adept at using his cast—a small ensemble in act one, a stage crowded with the full chorus in act two, and a sparsely filled stage with only five characters in total appearing in act three—to form evocative groupings, making sure everyone is playing out their role at all times, even when they are far from the center of a scene's action.”
- Arthur Dorman, Talking Broadway

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María de Buenos Aires
Des Moines Metro Opera
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“Director Octavio Cardenas and Designer Adam Crinson created an immersive theater experience by pacing the action in a seamy café with onstage seating for audience members.”
 - OPERA NEWS

​“The selective use of masks and primitive props added to the gritty ritualistic tone of the storytelling, which was staged with inventive mischief by director Octavio Cardenas. Mr. Cardenas embraced the composition, and acknowledged that it is decidedly not a linear tale. He created a 90-minute series of constantly morphing impressions, characterized by fluidity of motion and variety of theatrical effects. He seized on the rampant symbolism and distilled it into comprehensible dramatic points. Octavio used the entire space as his canvas…”
 - James Sohre, Opera Today

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La bohème
​Minnesota Opera
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“Minnesota Opera's 'La bohème' will make you happy to be sad. [...] Stage director Octavio Cardenas is closely attentive to the music's nuances." 
- Jay Gabler, Classical MPR

“Minnesota Opera's production succeeds, in part, thanks to an emotionally understated new staging. […] What makes the production a success, in addition to its strong cast and the supple conducting of Michael Christie, is Octavio Cardenas’ staging, which is full of subtle touches and details that put forth the sensible idea that “Bohème,” despite the spectacle of Act II, is essentially an ensemble piece of chamber-music proportion."
 - Michael Anthony, Star Tribune
 
“…director Octavio Cardenas has summoned from his cast an electric esprit de corps, making me feel as if I was with a very fun group of people in a very exciting place.”
- Rob Hubbard, Twin Cities Pioneer Press
 
“Octavio Cardenas provides steady stage direction that keeps the many parts moving smoothly, particularly the fully stuffed stage in the act two Christmas celebrations. He uses space outside the garret to expand the performances without losing the sense of confinement provided by the interior.” 
- Arthur Dorman, Talking Broadway

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María de Buenos Aires
​Opera Grand Rapids
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“Weird and Wonderful: Sold out María de Buenos Aires opera captures imagination."
- Cultured.GR

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Galileo Galilei
​Des Moines Metro Opera
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“Director Octavio Cardenas and his talented cast have accomplished a considerable success in performing this rarity with dedicated passion and precision. Mr. Cardenas found no end of diverse uses for this space, and its limitations seemed to be liberating as he cleverly placed the singers in any number of varied groupings and poses. Every possible entrance was utilized, the height of the ramp versus the depth of the pit was exploited, and a myriad of highly theatrical presentations impressed. The haunting look of the four empty birdcages on sticks, the administering of the 'irons' that suspend and punish Galileo, the evocation of three people in a Venetian gondola suggested by two chairs and a paddle, all were magical."
- James Sohre, Opera Today

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Susannah
​Loyola Opera Theater
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"Best Student or Community Opera"
2012 Classical Award, Gambit Magazine

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Silent Night
Lyric Opera of ​Kansas City

“Director Octavio Cardenas moved the singers and chorus around the complex set with skill, and brought focus to solo moments as well”
- Paul Horsley, The Independent.  Kansas city’s Journal of Society
 
“Conductor, David Abell and Director, Octavio Cardenas, led in the breathtaking realization of the production from the printed page.” 
- Floyd Gingrich, Examiner.com
 
“The Lyric Opera’s production, one of its finest performances in recent memory, premiered Saturday in Kauffman Theatre, directed by Octavio Cardenas.” 
- Libby Hanssen, The Kansas City Star

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Silent Night
​Fort Worth Opera

“Stage director Octavio Cardenas does a marvelous job. .. Most noticeable, among the many brilliant touches he brings to the action, is the wariness with which the enemies treat each other right up to the final moment of temporary bonding and the hesitance to then go back to killing. It is much harder, if not impossible, to shoot a friend than an enemy.” 
- Gregory Sullivan Isaacs, TheaterJones, North Texas Performing Arts News
 
“Octavio Cardenas’ powerful staging keeps it a consistently focused drama.”
- Olin Chism, Star Telegram
 
“Stage director Octavio Cardenas brings every character and situation to life.”
- Scott Cantrell, The Dallas Morning news

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As One
​Urban Arias
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“Last night in a talkback after the show with the cast and creative team, I asked how—as actors accustomed to playing opposite another actor in the role of an “opposite” sex—the two had achieved such authenticity of unanimity. Director Octavio Cardenas answered by relating what he called “an accident in rehearsal”: One day, he said, Orozco and Cutright both forgot their blocking in a scene, and for a telling time they looked intently to each other as if to find in the other the memory they each lacked. “That’s it,” Cardenas said he told them (I’m paraphrasing); “you just found who you are to each other on stage.”  
- John Stoltenberg, DC Metro Theater Arts
 
“Director Octavio Cardenas has supported the intention of the work well and made the most of this “final draft” of the work that has paired the story down to two performers sharing the role of Hannah. Cardenas prepares the audience early on with a central metaphor for the story by having the singers perform mirror imaging. He has created some lovely stage pictures in the episodic “glimpses” into Hannah’s life as in one of my favorite scenes, where Hannah, presenting as a boy, is seen in early elementary school learning cursive writing and struggling to stifle impulses of producing round and flowing lettering. Hannah instead must “muscle” his way to present a “masculine” stiff wrist and taut style of cursive writing. The girl, his “other,” keeps teasing him, almost flirtatiously, to follow his own impulses and commit to a penmanship  she knows is her personal creative expression.” 
- Susan Galbraith, DC Theater Scene
 
“Under the direction of Octavio Cardenas, the two stars playfully make great use of both stage and energetic space—it seemed the theatre condensed and expanded with Hannah’s journey.” 
- Asha T’nae, MD Theater Guide
 
“Director Octavio Cardenas took an abstract approach to the staging, granting the audience access to Hannah’s internalized struggle. 'As she goes through her journey, she experiences all kinds of transformation,' Cardenas says. 'All the changes physically and psychologically, doubt, fear, acceptance. In the end, however, she learns to take herself as one.'”
- Connor J. Hogan,  Metro Weekly

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Rappaccini’s Daughter
Des Moines Metro Opera
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“Director Octavio Cardenas was successful overall in creating this special world… In a lovely stroke, Mr. Cardenas added three extras to the cast, mute “trees” that were lithe women evocatively attired in stylized tree “dresses… The director made masterful use of the “trees” and the “flowers” to create varied, meaningful and artistic stage pictures … Director and designers also took good advantage of the natural staircases and paths of the Botanical Gardens and did a good job integrating the performance into the environment (and vice versa)."
- James Sohre, Opera Today