Copy a cool-headed character in opera (5)
I believe the answer is:
mimic
'copy' is the definition.
(I know that mimic is a type of copy)
'a cool-headed character in opera' is the wordplay.
'a cool-headed' becomes 'mimi' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'character in' means to look at the middle letters (I've seen 'characters in' mean this).
'opera' becomes 'simon boccanegra' (I've seen this before).
The middle of 'simonboccanegra' is 'c'.
'mimi'+'c'='MIMIC'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mimic that I've seen before include "Imitate in order to ridicule" , "Impersonator" , "Take (someone) off" , "parrot" , "Skilled imitator" .)