Burnand's 1897 comic opera, "His Majesty", with music by Alexander Mackenzie, failed despite the contributions of the lyricist Adrian Ross and a Savoy Theatre cast including Ilka Pálmay, George Grossmith and Walter Passmore. The blame was generally held to be Burnand's. "The Times" commented, "Mr Burnand's experience as a librettist of comic opera, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie's inexperience in this class of composition might lead the public to expect a brilliant book weighed down by music of too serious and ambitious a type. The exact opposite is the case." Burnand's libretto was judged dull and confused, but Mackenzie's music was "marked by distinction as well as humour." Stedman comments that Burnand's conviction that he, not Gilbert, should have been Sullivan's main collaborator defied the facts: "The Chieftain", his rewrite of "The Contrabandista" with Sullivan, ran for only 97 performances in 1894, and "His Majesty" managed only 61 performances. Nevertheless, Burnand used his position as editor of "Punch" to print antagonistic reviews of the plays of Gilbert and refused to give the Gilbert and Sullivan operas reviews in the magazine.