Piece of Amilcare Ponchielli's making a comeback? (5)
I believe the answer is:
opera
'piece' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'of amilcare ponchielli's making a comeback?' is the wordplay.
'of' indicates a hidden word.
'making a comeback?' is a reversal indicator.
'arepo' can be found hidden inside 'amilcare ponchielli'.
'arepo' reversed gives 'OPERA'.
(Other definitions for opera that I've seen before include "musical presentation" , "Eg, Carmen" , "Fidelio for instance" , "eg Otello" , "some theatrics" .)