Ray Bay wrote:

>Stereo was invented in 1954 by the Fletcher boys...

Sorry but that's wrong.  Stereo was invented in the 1930s, in England, at
EMI, by Alan Blumlein.  There are stereo recordings from 1937 made by him
to prove it.

Read:
The Inventor of Stereo: The life and works of Alan Dower Blumlein
by Robert Charles Alexander

There is also a 1944 Berlin recording of Bruckner's 8th conducted by
Karajan which has a fourth movement recorded in stereo so the Germans
were at it around the same time.

However, I too doubt a 1955 stereo Ring.

Tony Duggan, England.
Mahler recordings survey:
http://www.musicweb.uk.net/Mahler/