Spyridon Xyndas writes music for the first opera based on a Greek libretto

The first opera, the Candidate MP, based on a Greek libretto by Ioannis Rinopoulos and music by Spyridon Xyndas, opens at the San Giacomo Theatre in Corfu, with the Philharmonic Society. The Candidate MP pioneered the use of demotic language in the libretto and rustic melodic elements from the Ionian and Epirotic rural societies. Also, the play's premiere in Athens in the spring of 1888 generated the first Greek-speaking professional operatic company's establishment, which was the "forebear" of the National Opera. Above all, however, the Candidate MP pioneered in conveying messages: the first Greek opera was not solely about the glory of the ancient or the more recent past; on the contrary, it presented in a realistic yet comic way, the difficulties of the Corfu farmworkers and the unpredictable and corrupt politicians, who together with their eager followers exploited the uneducated and poor rural populations of the island aiming only to hold and distribute power and money amongst themselves.