Plus (I guess you are from the US, so 120V area) the MV has arc voltage a bit above 110V, so you would need 220..240V to run it just in series with an incandescent.
So it may work in 230V mains Europe, but not in 120V North America.
And definitely if your only supply is 12 or 24V, you would need a special ballast/inverter (e.g. like
this) for the lamp anyway, so then no incandescent or so would be needed.