How to get a SurfaceHolder with a valid Surface (needed by EGL.eglCreateWindowSurface)?

I try to initialize GLES with EGL (because I want to draw from the main thread instead of using a Renderer and drawing from inside onDrawFrame). I get the error: "Make sure the SurfaceView or associated SurfaceHolder has a valid Surface". Obviously mEgl.eglCreateWindowSurface fails because surfaceHolder has not a valid surface. How do I get a SurfaceHolder with a valid Surface to proceed?

My Activity.onCreate method is:

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    GLSurfaceView surfaceView = new GLSurfaceView(this);
    setContentView(surfaceView);
    SurfaceHolder surfaceHolder = surfaceView.getHolder();
    Surface surface = surfaceHolder.getSurface();
    Log.v("HelloAndroid", "surface.isValid()= " + Boolean.toString(surface.isValid()));

    EGL10 mEgl = (EGL10) EGLContext.getEGL();
    EGLDisplay mEglDisplay = mEgl.eglGetDisplay(EGL10.EGL_DEFAULT_DISPLAY);
    int[] version = new int[2];
    mEgl.eglInitialize(mEglDisplay, version);
    EGLConfig[] configs = new EGLConfig[1];
    int[] num_config = new int[1];
    int[] configSpec = {
            EGL10.EGL_NONE
    };
    mEgl.eglChooseConfig(mEglDisplay, configSpec, configs, 1, num_config);
    EGLConfig mEglConfig = configs[0];
    EGLContext mEglContext = mEgl.eglCreateContext(mEglDisplay, mEglConfig,
            EGL10.EGL_NO_CONTEXT, null);
    EGLSurface mEglSurface = null;
    Log.v("HelloAndroid", "M");
    mEglSurface = mEgl.eglCreateWindowSurface(mEglDisplay,
            mEglConfig, surfaceHolder, null);
    Log.v("HelloAndroid", "N");
    mEgl.eglMakeCurrent(mEglDisplay, mEglSurface, mEglSurface,
            mEglContext);
    Log.v("HelloAndroid", "O");
}

The log output I get with platform-tools/adb logcat is:

V/HelloAndroid( 1861): surface.isValid()= false
D/libEGL  ( 1861): egl.cfg not found, using default config
D/libEGL  ( 1861): loaded /system/lib/egl/libGLES_android.so
V/HelloAndroi