Directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile, Adulterio all’italiana (Adultery Italian Style) is a biting comedy that targets bourgeois hypocrisy and the paradoxes of marriage in 1960s Italian society. Starring Ugo Tognazzi and Catherine Spaak, the film follows a couple in the midst of a full-blown marital crisis, navigating infidelity, subtle acts of revenge, and a battle of the sexes portrayed with intelligence and irony. Adding rhythm and color to this emotional battleground is Armando Trovajoli, who composed an elegant, ironic, and deeply evocative score.

Once again, Trovajoli demonstrates an extraordinary sensitivity in capturing the psychological nuances of the characters. In Adulterio all’italiana, his music accompanies the most cynical and surreal moments with a tone that walks the line between the romantic and the grotesque. The main theme is a bittersweet melody, with refined orchestral lines and harmonies that oscillate between lyrical and mocking. The use of instruments such as the harpsichord, vibraphone, and light woodwinds gives the soundtrack a vaguely retro flavor—perfectly aligned with the film’s disenchanted irony.

The music doesn’t just underscore what happens on screen—it reveals what goes unsaid: hypocrisy, social conventions, repressed desires. Trovajoli plays with the contrast between melody and situation, giving the soundtrack an almost “commentary-like” function, adding a second voice to the visual narrative. The Adulterio all’italiana soundtrack is less well-known than some of Trovajoli’s other works, but no less compelling. It’s a score worth listening to outside the film itself, capable of evoking—with just a few chords—the melancholic and ironic atmosphere of an Italy in transition, often pretending nothing was changing at all.