With a quarter of an hour enduring Di Maria finished wonderfully from a tight angle, a rare draw attention to in a poor match that ended with both sides a man light after Muhammad Dabo was given his marching orders for a wild kick at the goals corer.
Madrid had toiled in a match where they barely twisted a meaningful opportunity before losing defender Ricardo Carvalho to a red card on 63 minutes, when he picked up a second yellow for a raised arm on Alvaro Negredo.
That sense of injustice spurred them on, as they under enemy control the latter stages and grabbed what was ultimately a deserved winner in a match more notable for constant flare-ups than high-quality football.
The win - not a classic in the style of Real but very typical of Jose Mourinho - cuts Barcelona's lead atop La Liga back to two points, while Sevilla have now lost five on the trot and lie 11th after their promising start to the season was derailed last month.
Sevilla made a good number of the early running but Real had the first genuine effort, Cristiano Ronaldo firing a long-range free-kick through the wall that Andres Palop spilled before grabbing the ball fractionally ahead of Karim Benzema.
Just before the quarter hour France's Benzema showed his now chronic lack of self-assurance, racing clean through on to Di Maria's pass but unwilling to lift the ball over or really try to round Palop, instead attempting a backheel that evaded his team-mates.
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