YOUNGSTOWN — Everybody knows the opera “Carmen,” even if they don’t know they know it.

“We were talking the other day loading in, whatever the No. 1 opera in the world is, ‘Carmen’ always is in the conversation,” Opera Western Reserve Stage Director Scott Skiba said. “Even more than ‘Boheme,’ ‘Traviata,’ the other big ones, ‘Carmen’ has a melody everybody knows. No matter where I was — a blue collar construction site, a NASCAR race, a football game — if I started humming ‘The Toreador Song,’ I bet almost everyone can finish it.”

Both “The Toreador Song” and “Habanera” from the Georges Bizet opera are familiar to non-opera fans from movies, commercials, sporting events and other pop culture uses.

With theater and opera still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, programming something popular and familiar is the smartest course, Skiba said, and Opera Western Reserve will stage “Carmen” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Powers Auditorium.

Skiba certainly knows “Carmen.” He sang the role of Escamillo in OWR’s 2009 production, and it was his last full-scale operatic role before he shifted his attention to directing. “Carmen” also was the first opera he directed in Youngstown, when founding director David Vosburgh hired him to helm its 2016 production and began the transition for Skiba to succeed Vosburgh as the company’s stage director.Vosburgh, who retired in 2019, died earlier this month at age 85.

“At the curtain speech, we’ll have some words,” Skiba said. “I don’t want to give it away, but thanking him, honoring him, that type of thing. Acknowledging all the work he did and all that he and (Music Director) Susan (Davenny Wyner) started.”

As someone who was directed by Vosburgh, Skiba described him as, “Very lively, energetic, always a big smile. Always tried to have a lot of fun during rehearsal and making people feel good about the work.”

That familiarity is accompanied by one major variable this year. OWR will stage this fall’s production at Powers instead of Stambaugh Auditorium. While Stambaugh is renowned for its acoustics, other facets made it less suited for full-scale opera productions. It affected how Skiba staged and directed certain scenes. He needed to position the orchestra so the singers would be able to see Wyner. But because she was at floor level instead in an orchestra pit, he had to block scenes with the visibility of her silhouette in mind

“My point of view was Stambaugh is a beautiful hall, beautiful acoustics, but once you put the orchestra on the floor and the singers on the stage, it changes those acoustics, it changes that balance,” Skiba said. “We had some really big voices in ‘La Boheme,’ and it was still creating some balance challenges, not to mention sightline challenges. We were bursting at the seams with ‘La Boheme’ in terms of where do we put everything and everybody, and we had to do a lot of sleight of hand to make that work.

“With the orchestra in the pit, the balance of sound was amazing, and just having a little more space, a little more wing space and dressing rooms. We had the first orchestra rehearsal in there on Friday, and everybody was like, ‘Whoa, this is great.’ We hedged our bets and brought in some acoustic amplification equipment but, no, we don’t need it.”

Playing the title character, a gypsy woman whose charms lead a lovestruck soldier to leave his sweetheart and his career, is Paulina Villarreal, who Skiba knew through the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, where he serves as assistant artistic director and she is on the voice faculty. Villarreal also teaches at the University of Memphis.

“She has great command over her physicality and her body,” Skiba said. “As a director who really values a singing actors’ ability to move with intention and conviction and power, she’s just really doing a great job of embodying the character.”

Jonathan Kaufman, who appeared in last year’s production of “La Boheme,” plays the soldier Don Jose, and the production also includes several singers with local and regional ties who have appeared in multiple OWR productions, including Brian Keith Johnson, Jason Budd and Marian Vogel.

“It’s great for the company to have these super-high-quality human beings — they’re all awesome people — and to pair that with being exceptionally talented, it’s a luxury to have artists like that living in northeast Ohio and being able to collaborate with them,” Skiba said.

The year’s production will feature even more local talent. OWR partnered with SMARTS artist school to assemble a children’s choir that will be part of the production, and “Carmen” also will feature dancers from Ballet Western Reserve, who will be back on the Powers stage Dec. 2 and 3 for its annual production of “The Nutcracker.”

“That’s been a great time having a bunch of enthusiastic, super-talented young folks in the production,” Skiba said.

If you go …

WHAT: Opera Western Reserve — “Carmen”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Powers Auditorium, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $22.50 to $75 and are available online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.