would this work for a permanent set up?

The incandescent setup should work well for the long term, you can build or adapt a fixture with two sockets so in one you put an MV and a halogen in the other, connected in series. I recommend you using a halogen (or incandescent) with a power around 2.3 times more than your MV, but you can test different powers until getting the most satisfying result. That one should last for long, and if the incandescent bulb dies you could easily replace it.

The second one has more efficiency than the previous one and could easily fit in an existing fixture with ballast space, but it can be quite tricky. You need to mach the current of the lamp by adding ballasts in parallel, but you could easily give the lamp too low or too much current and getting the right current could use quite some ballasts, which might become quite big to fit into the fixture.

Both should work pretty good, but I would launch with the incandescent ballast option first.

He didn't specify that it had to work.

That's true 

While you can get the correct current the voltage isn't high enough for conventional MV. Remember than the 120v SBMV lamps have special arctubes that have a lower arc voltage and hence won't cycle on 120v and they have preheating filaments to allow for starting that the 240v SBMVs lack.

It probably would as long as you have it wired up correctly and are running on 240v power. That's basically how 240v SBMV lamps are laid out internally. A MV arc tube connected in series with a incandescent filament as a ballast.

will it run fine on 60 hertz?

will it run fine on 60 hertz?

Yes, it works at 60Hz.