Huh. After several reboots of the guest OS, Chromium now starts.
This is decidedly odd.
The error message from Chromium is still there, that was a red herring.
Additionally, there are now a bazillion (roughly) additional error
messages, but the user interface _does_ start.
OpenGL Warning: glFlushVertexArrayRangeNV not found in mesa table
OpenGL Warning: glVertexArrayRangeNV not found in mesa table
...
I think I will chalk my problems on Oracle's part of the blackboard from
now, and not Google's or Debian's.
I'll get back if I manage to reproduce the problem again, and if so,
with relevant information.