Tutor playing around with opera (8)
I believe the answer is:
turandot
'opera' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'tutor playing around with' is the wordplay.
'playing' is an anagram indicator.
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'with' becomes 'and'.
'tutor' with letters rearranged gives 'turot'.
'turot' enclosing 'and' is 'TURANDOT'.
(Other definitions for turandot that I've seen before include "Opera by Puccini" , "Puccini's Chinese opera" , "18 [OPERA] 's" .)