Artist in E European state volunteers for opera (2,8)
I believe the answer is:
la traviata
'opera' is the definition.
(Verdi opera)
'artist in e european state volunteers' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'e european' becomes 'latv' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'state' becomes 'IA'.
'volunteers' becomes 'TA' (abbreviation for Territorial Army).
'ra' inserted within 'latv' is 'latrav'.
'latrav'+'ia'+'ta'='LA TRAVIATA'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for la traviata that I've seen before include "work" , "Verdi opera" , "Verdi's Dumas opera" .)